WITHDRAWN

From the moment that Snape could stand, teetering from side to side, he saw water spattering against every window. He longed to touch it, but he could barely reach the ledges. Curiously, when he gazed at his mother, he often saw water streaking down her face, too. And so he assumed that human beings must cry because of the sky.

His mother's red eyes might have explained why she rarely held him as much as he demanded. Sometimes, no amount of wails would arouse her attention, either because she never appeared, or because she huddled into a corner with her face covered and her shoulders shaking.

As the days crawled by, he learned only about rain, particularly when it dripped from the ceiling. Then he tottered over to the ledge, lost in its inky shadow. With a series of cries, he attempted to stop this outpouring. Frustration grew as he saw no change, and he would topple onto the floor with a wail of dismay. After a while, he learned that some things would not change, no matter how much one forced the matter.

No matter where he ran, doors loomed high above him. As the light faded, they would creak open and shut, open and shut. Mostly, it was his mother, tiptoeing here and there. But the grey door furthest from him would admit a very different visitor: a man who carried a pungent aroma. Later, he would recognise this as alcohol. For now, he would only sneeze and stifle a sob. The man kept green bottles everywhere, some half full. In his foggy memory, he had once pushed one, releasing a sticky golden liquid. The man had yelled and shoved him into a corner.

So whenever that slick, oily shadow appeared, Snape would toddle into a corner first. Sometimes, he too covered his eyes, cringing as though the cold air was lashing his back. He imagined the door swinging open on one hinge long before the event, the man slumped against it. Clink, clink… He always carried bottles, which would clatter or smash onto the floor, sometimes onto his mother's head.

Clump, clump… The man's steps resounded throughout his head even when the man had disappeared, making him shudder. Difficult as it was to believe, he had once crawled towards the man, expecting something. What? He could not say. All he knew was that the man's footsteps veered in a different direction whenever he came near. Since he could not crawl fast enough to keep up, he learned, far too slowly, never to approach.

Rain, rain, and yet more rain. He wished he could reach the window and press his face against it. What did the water feel like? Was it as slippery as the room with white tiles, where he had fallen or been pushed many a time? Was it as salty as the water on his cheeks? Would it soak into a pillow after a night of tossing and turning? Nobody could answer those questions, not least because he had never learned how to ask. Water dripped everywhere: onto the tiles, the floor, his oversized clothes, onto his mother's faded skirts...

The rooms- he could not yet fathom a house- shivered every day. From time to time, his mother said something and some blankets would appear from thin air. He liked that, more for the startling effect than their smell; the man had used them. Being carried would have worked better, but she never understood why his arms jerked and waved so often. Almost every demand led to total silence.

So in time, he learned the value of silence, too. People in this world never spoke. They rarely made eye contact. He copied the sunken heads and hunched shoulders around him, first from inside and then outside. In this graveyard, everybody feared something: a flare of rage, a series of blows. He learned that he, too, must defend himself from whatever enemies lurked in corners, shadows, and behind doors. Nobody could be trusted, nobody could be understood. Any attack might come as a surprise, but in retrospect, he learned to blame himself for allowing his defences to slip.

Why did this happen? From time to time, a foolish impulse made him wonder whether other people might lift their heads, unclench their fists, and walk without fear.

But if neither his mother nor the man would ever change, then what chance had anybody else?