Chapter 1
It was still dark when a wheezy dark sound woke him. He reached to his left. The bed next to him had been slept in and he felt a little sheepish. He briefly deliberated washing up in the bathroom, then decided against it, suddenly apprehensive of meeting anyone. He briefly undid his clothes to use cleaning spells, then refastened his buttons with practiced fingers, brushing them through his hair in want of a comb. The yellow light seeping in from the street showed that his mother's vanity was still sitting in the corner of the bedroom, its rich dark wood and tall mirror clashing almost comically with the plastic coated bedframe that dad had purchased at a jumble sale in earlier days. He rubbed the salt from his cheeks and chin and chased the beginning stubble from his face with his wand, too. Then, he took a deep breath and slipped down the staircase.
With practiced ease he avoided the one that creaked, silently moved towards the kitchen in the back of the house, halting at the door, immediately engulfed by a waft of cigarette smoke, tea, and toast in the dim light drifting in from other houses windows and the far street light. A shape turned and flipped on the kitchen light. Instinctively, Severus shied away and raised his hand in front of his eyes.
"Bloody hell," a gruff voice said, "you look older than me!"
Moments later he felt himself embraced in a warm hug by dad, whom he remembered taller and stronger, but who had long since been of a height with him.
"Dad," he croaked, suddenly unable to speak, as the other man patted his back and stepped back.
"Sit," dad said, indicating the kitchen chair. He put down a cup of sweet black tea in front of him. "What happened? Did the blond guy break up with you?"
Severus had not missed this conversation, and still, against his will, his upper lip curled slightly.
"For the last time: I am not in a relationship with Lucius Malfoy."
"Right, right. But you are still a fairy right?"
"Wizard, father."
"Right. Well, you must forgive my confusion, what with the dress and the long hair. Suits you, mind."
He did not relax into the familiar taunt that carried no sting, his fingers finding the scratch in the table, remnant of a thrown bottle long ago. His father watched him for a moment, then took another drag from his cigarette and flicked it into the bin, from whence smoke kept curling towards the ceiling in strangely angular patterns. They drank their tea in silence until the unsaid threatened to drown him.
"How's mother?" Severus croaked.
"Fine, grand. She's working a late shift, will be back in about an hour. Has been going to her meetings. She's doing well. It's been about two years now."
Severus did not reply. He drank his tea, not wanting to talk. He felt his father's ever sharp, dark eyes on him.
"So. Are you in trouble?"
He managed a nod.
"Right. Did they send you packing?"
Severus felt his shoulder automatically give the half-shrug that he always had as a teenager. He tried to make himself look up but failed. He picked at the scratch in the table.
"Oh lad. Well. It happens. They're different from us, and you, well, with your background, you didn't exactly ever make it to Eton, it'd always have been difficult for you to stick with it."
He did not look up, the teenager once more taking over in this familiar environment and did not reply. There was a pause and then his father stood with a creak of the rickety chair. He stretched.
"Right. I'll fix up a place for you. Do you want to hang about here and say hi to your mam?"
Severus was unable to reach Professor Snape, he was Severus and felt about ten. He kept picking at the scratch.
"Do you want to come to work with me and stay at the Gregg's across the road?"
Severus stood and waited for his father to put on his coat and followed him out the door. The chilly morning air knifed into his neck and he cursed his lack of foresight. He had not brought a scarf. He had not brought anything. They walked in a silence that was familiar, if not entirely companionable. Dad playing his keys in his pocket in an effort not to light another cigarette. They boarded the bus in silence, his father paying his fare without comment. When they arrived at what turned out to be a bakery, his father slipped him a tenner and gave him a nod, then turned to go in to work.
As Severus queued for his sausage roll, he saw a group of youths wearing clothes quite similar to his and briefly thought what his father would have thought about their smudged make-up. Quite probably, he would have asked why he was not wearing any.
His roll finished, he deliberated about what to do with the plate and in the end just got up and fled the café, hunching his shoulders against the chill. Though a lot had changed in the years since he had last been there, but only the centre of Cokeworth was full of ghosts. Old Vimto posters (how long had it been since he had tasted that?), empty Walker's packets (and the excitement of multipacks, all ready for various breaks), the corner store where he and Lily had bought ice creams in summer. A lot had changed, as was usual. Storefronts changed frequently, betting studios became nail salons became hairdressers. Chippies closed and reopened.
Cokeworth was a place where people came to sleep. Even in his childhood, playing in the fields and abandoned factory grounds, there had always been this sense of unease that hung about the city centre like fog. At least for him – his father was as happy he could ever be as long as he had his scratch cards, the footie and the pub at weekends. He did not look much older, his father, and better, healthier than Severus could remember from his childhood.
His parents had been young when they had him, his dad married at nineteen, Severus born six months after the wedding. And he had only very vague memories of his grandmother. He had never met his aunt, who had emigrated to Maryborough, Australia a few years after he was born. It had been bad and had only slowly gotten better. The rows about drinking, the way dad used to shout at mother, even though she could not help it, the secrets, dad's seemingly never-ending job hunt, the air of despair that hung over the house, the way he used to hang about outside the factory, waiting for dad to get off work.
But turning the corner, he saw that a lot was gone. Whole swathes of the tenements that had become council housing had either been torn down and replaced with identical looking estates or refurbished with extensions sprouting out of the back walls like hunches. Right to Buy had seen that most of the ones that remained had been personalised out of their uniformity. Their neighbourhood was a place to come from, not to move to, and walking through the streets he was only reminded of what was not there anymore.
He was adrift, unmoored. It was difficult to feel professorial in Cokeworth. It was difficult to feel anything but out of place. Not that he had ever fitted in. He walked up and down the high street for hours, not even getting suspicious looks from other people. This was not an area where grown men in funny clothes walking up and down high street aimlessly in the middle of the day got funny looks. This was not the kind of place where people looked at one another at all.
Around midday he could ignore his growling stomach no longer and returned to the bakery, even though he had passed several places that offered food. He thought about going into the corner store, but no, he did not dare do that yet.
He selected a different kind of pastry and a mug of tea and sat at the plasticky tables, watching crumbs spill down the front of his buttoned robes. He watched the other patrons and the clock, until he felt the eyes of the servers on him. Then he left. He knew that if he walked to the end of the street and back, he would add another half hour. He did it three times, then stood at the gate of the factory, lamenting the fact that he did not smoke. It would have been an easy excuse.
The gate opened and a group of men came forth, some separate, heading home fast, driven, some walking in an aimless group, laughing and shoving each other. He peered around for his father, feeling the sudden weight settle in his stomach.
He emerged late, in a group of other joking men, and only peeled off when he spotted Severus, after pretending to ruffle the hair of a bald co-worker two heads taller than him. He stopped before Severus and looked him up and down.
"Hey, fancy a pint with the lads? … Thought not. Come on, let's go home."
They walked along the closing storefronts in silence until they reached a large structure and his father stopped.
"Come on, we need some bread, milk, and- did you bring a change of clothes?"
He did not reply, but followed his father into the shop, which was bright, and brightest of all the illuminated, tall letters. It was like being poured into another world, a world of muggles, and they were everywhere, pushing carts, narrowly avoiding crashing into each other at any moment. He silently walked next to the cart and watched his father select items and put them in. Off-brand, he remembered. They were cheaper. The first time his father turned to look at him, they were in the clothes section. Bright, blurred signs shouted about reductions and special offers.
"Fucking hell, lad. Do you need us to sit down somewhere?"
Severus shook his head, picked a pair of trousers and disappeared into one of the changing rooms.
He sat down on the inside and watched the feet of the other shoppers go by, waiting for the tremor to die down.
After a while, a sweater was slung across the top of the stall.
"Try this on," said dad.
He briefly deliberated putting it on over his robes, but then simply held it up against his body and decided it was too large. He sat back down.
"Unmentionables you'll have to pick yourself," came his father's voice. "How's the sweater?"
"It's adequate."
"Perfect. Let's take three. The trousers?"
He nodded and his father checked the size and put two more into the shopping trolley. He felt absurd, small, younger. He leant on the shopping cart. There were two multipacks of black socks in it.
"Is the all black thing mandatory or are these okay?" A pair of dark blue trousers were held under his nose. He took them in, the acrid smell, the incongruous white seams.
"Or should we check for something more similar to what you're wearing elsewhere? Not taking the piss, mind, but I doubt that they offer all of this gothy stuff over here."
He took the trousers out of his father's hands and placed them in the cart.
"They're fine," he croaked.
He could feel his father's eyes linger on him and kept his fixed on the blurry cart.
"Tell you what, there's a café outside the shop, why don't you get us a table there and two teas and I'll be right out? You really do need to sit down, lad."
He did as he was told. Ordered tea, sat down at a table from which he could see the cash registers. His father emerged a while later, carrying five plastic bags. He sat down with a small "oof" sound and an alarming creak from his knee. He chuckled when he saw Severus look surprised.
"Fifty-seven, lad. I may look younger than you, but I'm not. Still, not complaining, I've still got all my own teeth and my hair's not falling out."
He saw his father ruffling his short hair to indicate its still dark colour from the corner of his eye.
"Is this about your mam?"
He did not reply.
"She's really doing well, lad. Two years and counting. Saw her GP and everything. Goes to meetings. She really is doing fine. She's got her job back. Mind, it's not anything you'd find fitting for her, but it's a job, and she does it. She's never complained about it, either."
Severus looked up and saw that it was true behind his father's eyes. He took a sip of his tea.
There were other truths. The truth was, he loved his mother. Had always loved her. Even when she got angry, even when she lost control over her actions. It was not her fault. He could see it in her actions, he could see it behind her eyes. He believed her when she apologised afterwards, when she cried at what she had done, how could he not? She could not help it. His father had often gotten angry in the beginning before he had got his job and things had been less tense overall, but he had not understood. He had only seen the outcome, the tears and occasional bruises, Severus loitering at the factory gate, the piles of garbage and dishes, he had not seen the desperate, abject need, the rage, the despair.
Severus had.
It was futile to tell him about it. But it did make him apprehensive about going back, even if it was the one place where they had to take him in and also the one place where no one would look if everyone truly believed him to be dead.
His father drained his tea.
"Come on," he said and stood, grabbing the plastic bag with practiced hands.
Severus followed him home.
