Chapter Zero

Is It My Eyes, or Is It the World that's Out Of Focus? Will This Life Stay Blurry Forever?

The waning sunlight stretched its fingers across our dining room table as I finally finished translating my grid of runes. I stretched my aching back and slid the grid over to my mother for grading.

It had turned out to be a small protective ward for a dwelling—centered on the 'Ur' rune—intended to keep people with malicious intent from crossing the threshold of the ward, but using an inverted anchor at Cardinal North. Hardly a difficult ward, but runes were never very difficult anyway; they only ever took time and patience.

Pick a rune, look it up, write it down, cross-reference with others nearby—rote memorization at its worst. I hated runes; there was no artistry in it. It was like math... static and colorless and dull. Integers and graphs and grids and mindless equations, and two and two making four...always four.

I'd much rather be brewing something. Or poking my eyeballs out with this quill. Something fun like that.

"That's five for five in ancient runes, Severus. Next week we'll be moving on to arithmancy and transfiguration, with special focus on Gamp's law. Well done, my little Valerian." My mother always finished my lessons with that, to my unending dismay.

Valerians were pale, leafy plants that grew where something had died. They thrived in darkness, taking nourishment from the cold, moist decay of carbon-based organisms, such as deer, rabbits or even humans. If the sun ever shined upon a valerian it would dry out, wilt and die.

They were most efficacious when picked at twilight. The leaves could be mashed to make a mild topical anesthetic or tinctured to thin the blood and relieve pain. The roots were used in several potent sleeping draughts.

Due to my obsessive fascination with potions and the dark arts—and in no small part because of how pale and reedy I was—that was how my mother referred to me: as a weed that fed only on death and grew only in the darkest of places.

"Thank you, Mother," I said quietly, shuffling off to wash my hands and make myself scarce.

With luck, I could spend a full hour in the Prince family library before supper. I didn't particularly care for Spellman's Syllabary or Numerology and Grammatica, but there were at least one hundred sordid tomes that I wanted to crack open, with titles like Magick Moste Evile and Confronting the Faceless and Moste Potente Potions; thousands of dusty, yellowed pages, waiting still and silent for me to uncover their secrets.

I made my way down the hall to the library and shut the door behind me, flipping on the electric wall sconce and stepping over to the bookshelves. It was the closest place to a sanctuary I had in this prison; I was the only one who cared to spend more than a few minutes at a time in here.

I'd been homeschooled since age three; my mother was intent on providing me a balanced wizarding education before shipping me off to Hogwarts. She always praised my capacity for learning, insisting that few children could keep up with such a rigorous course load.

I didn't particularly care about a balanced wizarding education; I only studied most of those tiresome subjects to please my mother and appease my father. My parents expected certain things from me, after all. Many things.

I was expected to study quietly, eat quietly, sleep quietly and always show deference to my parents. I was not to look my father in the eye, and I was not to linger in his presence any longer than necessary. I was to complete every assignment my mother set before me, and I was only to go outside on Saturdays, assuming all my coursework for the week had been finished.

I did everything that was expected of me, but it lacked excitement—it lacked life.

I wasn't to leave the house, but I'd gotten around that well enough by sewing one of my pairs of jeans to an old smock and stuffing the cavity full of leaves. If I propped it up against the far side of the dimly-lit library, it was a passable imitation of me. At least for the occasional glance, which was all I'd ever been spared on a Saturday.

That meant I was free to wander about on my own. My parents didn't know where I was going—or even that I was gone—and as long as I returned by nightfall with all the hair and fingers I'd left with in the morning, they wouldn't say a word.

My favorite thing to do on Saturday was sneak away from our house on Spinner's End, away from Cradley Heath with its ugly, dirty river and its cobbled streets and vandal-haunted homes, broken windows boarded over with thin plywood sheets. Away from fish and chips wrapped in the latest Black Country Bugle. The further I wandered, the easier it was to pretend I didn't belong there.

I hated my muggle neighborhood and its mundane, bigoted inhabitants—like my father. I hated the insipid children around me, only consumed with trivialities like their next meal, or what new toy they would harass their parents for. I hated the old foundry with its single huge chimney that dominated the skyline. I hated that my parents cloistered me; they feared more than anything that some casual slip would reveal us to be more than just another blue-collar family.

I hated that my mother fell for a man like my father—almost as much as she hated herself for the very same. She spoke of it once to me: how she'd been young and foolish when she fell in love, and now that she was old and sentimental, she couldn't bear to leave him. Her implacable love for my father, a second-rate abuser and a first-rate drunk, was her weakness; the dirty blood running through my veins was a daily reminder of that.

I hated that my father was always so dissatisfied with me. He cared nothing for my magical aptitude, nothing for my gifts—he only wanted a son that was tall, proud and strong; my mother had failed to give him an heir he could be proud of.

Never muggle enough for my father, never magical enough for my mother. I was nothing but a shameful souvenir of their love, eating and sleeping and breathing beside them.

It had been years since she confessed that to me, but I would remember it forever.

So I sat against the wall of the library under the sconce, tucked my feet under me, opened The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts to my well-worn bookmark and did my best to ignore the shouting down the hallway.

I would never forget her weakness.

That was my life until a Saturday like any other; sneaking out of the house, following the warm summer breeze and letting my feet take me somewhere else.

I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for anymore, if I had ever known at all...I just knew that there had to be something more to this hazy reality. From the leaves on the trees to the fingers of my outstretched hand, it all seemed so indistinct. Everything was so blurred around the edges; soft and dull and diffused...

What was I supposed to focus on? What on earth was I looking for?

I would find my answer on a Saturday like any other, and later reassure myself that I'd known all along.

I'd headed West that day, following the A4100.

It was nothing more than a chance encounter; I was passing Lomie Town park and spotted a new girl at the playground with her sister, swinging over the asphalt. As my eyes landed on the pair, the redheaded girl launched herself off of her swing at the height of its arc and flew through the air with a great shout of laughter, staying up far too long and landing as gracefully as a leaf in the wind. Her hair flashed brilliantly in the sunlight.

It impressed me indelibly—I'd never seen anyone so transparently magical. Nothing I'd ever observed could compare to this new, intensely fascinating creature. Such a casual display of purposeful magic, wandless and in plain sight...it would've enraged my parents. She was fearless.

I wanted to meet her.

The problem was in my approach. I couldn't just walk up and start chatting; I had no idea who she was or what she'd think of me. And I very much wanted her first impression of me to be good. I wasn't sure why I cared so much what she thought, whoever she was, but it didn't stop me from caring, all the same.

I had hurried away before they could spot me in my smock, which looked quite ridiculous all of a sudden. I wished I had clothes that I wasn't ashamed of wearing, but I had no choice in the matter. I had only hand-me-downs—my jeans were my father's and my mother had cut them for my height three years ago, so they were far shorter on me than was respectable and the too-wide waist was held up with a long, floppy leather belt. My jacket was my father's also, and he'd simply told me to grow into it.

I'd thought hard about the best way to reveal myself to her, but nothing came to mind. Social interaction was a mystery to me; my parents were too concerned about what would happen if the muggles found out about our wizarding blood.

I knew that children usually associated with others of their age and class, but I had no idea who these two children were. The redheaded one looked to be my age, but the other was at least a few years older. They both looked well-cared-for, so I assumed they lived further West in nearby Brierley Hill.

I visited the playground many times in the following weeks, just watching the two of them. Petunia, the older sister, was thoroughly muggle. The younger one, who had flown through the air the day I first saw her, was named Lily.

Even her name was fascinating to me: Lily. Sometimes I caught myself saying her name for no reason at all, simply because I liked the way my mouth and tongue moved as they shaped the sounds.

Lily.

It became blatantly obvious, after several weeks of casual observation, that neither she nor her sister had any idea how she was doing these strange things. She was muggleborn. She knew nothing of the Wizarding World, nothing of her birthright. I had to meet her, now; I wanted to be the one to introduce her to the world she would soon be a part of.

I would tell her everything she'd always wondered, and perhaps I'd be welcomed to join them on the swings. Maybe she'd even want to be my friend...I knew I was poor and dirty, but that didn't have to matter so much. I just had to present myself in the proper light.

I was still trying to figure out how to present myself when my opportunity arrived, unfortunately.

I had been hiding behind my usual cover—an expansive Sweet Briar bush—watching them on the swings as she launched herself skyward again. Her sister complained, as she usually did, but I ignored her and I hoped Lily would as well. She performed amazing feats so casually, simply for the joy of doing something that violated the laws of nature. I never grew tired of watching her.

She made her way over to the bush I was hiding behind, and my heart nearly stopped beating as she bent down to pick up a rose blossom that had fallen from my bush. "Tuney, look at this," she said cheerfully, "Watch what I can do."

Petunia glanced around nervously before approaching. I could see her face twist as Lily made the flower bloom and close like some bizarre, pink, many-lipped oyster.

"Stop it!" she shrieked.

"It's not hurting you," Lily said, tossing the blossom back to the asphalt.

"It's not right," Petunia muttered, following the flower's path back to the ground and lingering there. "How do you do it?" her voice was quiet and insistent.

This is it! I tried to swallow the nervous lump in my throat as I clenched my fists tightly. I know how she does it, this is my opening!

"Isn't it obvious?" I asked her, jumping out from behind my bush.

Petunia shrieked and ran for the cover of the swings, but Lily, though clearly startled, stood her ground. I felt her eyes on me and turned to meet them, and everything around me shifted on its axis.

I felt the most alarming unsteadiness for an instant—like a magnet being pulled from rest to meet its opposite—but with that tilt, the entire world clicked into place.

I'd never seen anything so clearly in my life as Lily Evans's eyes. Every detail of her was in sharp contrast, like she had snapped my world into focus. In the span of a blink the earth had exploded in colors and smells that had surely not been there even a moment earlier. A scent like sweet apples overwhelmed me, and the sunlight was suddenly too harsh to bear.

I felt so overwhelmed at the unexpected rush of information that my head spun. I forgot where the ground was, I forgot to breathe, and I even forgot my name for one long, lingering moment.

Her eyes were green. Not muddy green or hazel green, but the brilliant kind found in a grassy field after the rain, or stained glass in sunlight. My hastily planned words drifted away on the wind as I gawked at Lily's eyes. The color was so intense, it was almost painful...

I curled my shoulders inward self-consciously, deeply regretting my ill-fitted clothes and the flush of heat that was rising on my cheeks. At least I'd worn my father's jacket; it helped to hide my smock from her view. I'd never felt more vulnerable and embarrassed in my life, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from her.

"What's obvious?" Lily asked, oblivious to the fact that the earth had just tilted around us.

Her words shook me from my stupor, reminding me who I was and why I was standing here instead of cowering behind my usual bush. I glanced over at her sister, grateful that she'd retreated to the swings. This was the moment I'd been hoping for. I licked my lips nervously and whispered, "I know what you are."

"What do you mean?"

"You're...you're a witch," I breathed reverently.

"That's not a very nice thing to say to somebody!" she huffed, sticking her nose in the air and marching off toward her sister.

"No!" I blurted out, chasing after her. For reasons I didn't fully understand, the thought of her being cross with me twisted something inside me. It felt like I'd been hit in the chest with something hard.

I finally caught up with her at the swings, next to her sister. That didn't come out right...I need to make it come out right...

"You are," I insisted. "You are a witch. I've been watching you for a while. But there's nothing wrong with that. My mum's one, and I'm a wizard." I searched her eyes for any flicker of acceptance, hoping that she'd understand this time.

You're magical...you're just like me...so please...

"Wizard!" Petunia shrieked, stepping closer and sneering down her nose at me. "I know who you are. You're that Snape boy!" She turned to her sister and added, "They live down Spinner's End by the river."

I felt something prickly and hot folding over inside of me at her words, her tone. I'd never felt anything so uncomfortable in my entire life. A sharp pinch behind my eyes made me wince.

Is this shame?

"Why have you been spying on us?" I heard Petunia ask. Her voice was shrill and cutting.

"Haven't been spying," I shot back defensively, searching for something that would hurt her like she'd just hurt me. "Wouldn't spy on you, anyway...you're a muggle."

I didn't expect her to understand the word, but I certainly hoped she understood the tone. You think you're so superior, do you? How dare you talk down to me!

"Lily, come on, we're leaving!" Petunia snapped, turning on her heel and heading for the playground gate.

I felt my anger vanish like smoke in the wind as Lily glared at me, replaced by that heavy, sweltering pressure in the pit of my stomach. I flinched at the heat in her glower, feeling another sharp twist in my chest.

And then she was gone.

I felt my knees crash against the warm asphalt as I gasped for breath, staring at down at my clenched fists in utter, maddening confusion. What just happened? What did I do wrong?

That did not go as I had imagined, I thought bitterly. My heart tried to compress ten years worth of beating into the next few minutes as I choked back my disappointment.

That wasn't supposed to be so...painful. I don't understand girls at all!

By the time I set off again toward Spinner's End, however, my heart had shrunk back down to its normal size and slowed mostly back to normal. My enthusiasm had not shrunk with it.

Despite the confusing sensations tearing into me, despite the pain, despite not having any clue how to find Lily again or what I'd say when I found her...I knew just from glancing around that I'd done something right.

I could see my outstretched fingers, count the leaves on the trees and smell the sun-baked pavement beneath me. For the first time, I looked forward to greeting another day—I'd finally come alive.

I wasn't born until a Saturday like any other, on the asphalt playground at Lomie Town park; I was nine years, five months old at the time.

Next Saturday, I'd go searching for Lily again.