Severus Snape was raised almost single-handedly by books; 'almost' because his mother gave him the books. His first words were 'stop that'. He had an advanced reading age by five and had since devoured science fiction, the classics, horror, true crime, non-fiction and every single book he could get his hands on about magic, Hogwarts and the world they inhabited. His muggle father expressly forbid the presence of such items within the house, but unbeknownst to him titles were hidden within several bookcases inside of the cellar at the bottom of the house, where Severus was often banished. In the lead up to his son's eleventh birthday, Tobias Snape had become even more hostile than usual. He was so intimidated by his wife's magical abilities that she was not permitted to use them in the house and rarely did. The moment his son had shown signs of inheritance Tobias had responded with intense discipline as though he hoped he could demean the magic out of him. As such, Severus had not told his father about his Hogwart's letter. His mother however was bursting with pride and had vowed to take him to the station no matter the consequences. Severus had been so distressed by the idea of leaving her alone that he hadn't wanted to go, but Lily Evans had changed all of that. He had a friend.


"Severus, baby, you're home so late." He had walked home in the rain as slowly as possible and the night sky was navy when he came in through the front door. He tucked Lily's copy of Peter Pan in to the back of his trouser, covering it with his shirt. Then he slipped off his dirty shoes and entered the small living room where his mother planted a kiss on his forehead. She was a tall, frail woman with a long pale face, a slightly crooked nose and sparkling blue eyes.

"He's not a baby Eileen," Severus's father croaked. He was sitting in an armchair by the fire with a bottle of beer. He was a well built man with heavy, dark eyes and the kind of sallow, lined face that could once have been handsome but had been ruined by a lifetime of bad deeds. He had not taken his eyes away from their small but blaring television.

"Oh, look at the state of you," Severus's mother muttered, pulling at his wet clothes. Severus shrugged her off and stood stiffly by the wall. "Where have you been?" Tobias turned his head to glance at his son.

"You look like a drowned rat, boy." Severus took this as his leave and made to cross the room.

"I'll go and dry off-"His father grabbed him about the wrist.

"Not before you get your old man a top up," he said gruffly, releasing him. Severus took the empty bottle and carried on in to the kitchen.


"I saw you running off with that girl."

"A girl?" his mother squeaked as Severus returned with a chilled bottle of beer for his father.

"She's a friend-"

"You haven't got any friends," his father drawled callously, "Because your stupid mother decided that you were too special for school." His mother bowed her head.

"All he got at that school were bruises-"Severus's advanced reading age had not boded well with others his age. Neither had his second hand clothes and long hair and since the age of 6 he had been homeschooled. Severus sometimes wished he wasn't if only so that he could get away from his father for a couple of hours every day.

"A little rough and tumble's good for a growing lad, not that he has grown much," Tobias chortled. Severus clenched his jaw. He had been born prematurely and was still small for his age. Whilst his mother insisted that he made up for his lacking height in intelligence, the subject was a sore spot for Severus and his father often used it against him in jest. "The little brat needs toughening up." Tobias got to his feet to slap Severus lightly on both cheeks with a laugh.

"Stop that," Severus insisted. His father stumbled and Severus righted him knocking the beer from his hands. They both watched it spill across the carpet as his mother shrieked.

"Look what you did!" his father growled and Severus stiffened. He dropped to his knees to reach an arm out before his crouching mother.

"Sit, ma. I'll do it-"His mother had graduated from Hogwarts with top grades and prospects but lost out to love. Tobias was a musician and she had fallen for him the moment she laid eyes on him at the back of a crowded Sunday service. He had been kind and faithful but he was neither of those things now. Although initially shocked and aghast at the revelation that the girl he loved was a witch, he was forced to remain at her side by an unexpected pregnancy. He never let Severus forget that he was the only reason he had stuck around. Severus often told him that he wished he hadn't bothered.


"Pity you didn't get a letter from that school. We'd both be glad to see the back of you!" his father shouted after him as he rushed in to the kitchen to grab a tea towel. He scrubbed the floor in silence as his father laughed loudly at the television. His mother stared down at him with a tender expression. Severus thought only of escape to Hogwarts with his new friend Lily. By the time he had finished his father had fallen asleep. He watched as his mother winked at him, slipping her wand from her sleeve, she dried off Severus's clothes with a quick spell. Then she closed her husband's nostrils and waited, until he sat forward with a choking gasp. Severus smirked and slipped unheard up the stairs in to his small bedroom. He threw himself on to the bed and pulled the book from the back of his trousers. He'd read it before but he would never admit that it was favourite. He took the crumpled Hogwarts letter from the pocket of his jacket to use as a bookmark and lay back down on the bed. He'd always liked the idea of Neverland and a little boy who defeated an evil, bitter old man but he had never liked the ending. He didn't think that Peter should have let anything get in the way of his feelings for Wendy. Constant fun and sunshine was all well and good but it was only the dark days which made a person appreciate that sometimes they got to live in the light. She was his salvation.


The next day he visited Lily at the schoolyard during her break. She left a game of hopscotch to come up to the gates with a dazzling smile. "Whatever happened to you?" she asked, the grin slipping from her face as she noted the nasty looking welt which had risen beneath his eye.

"I fell," Severus lied. Mornings were a difficult time in the Snape household. Severus seemed to have a tendency to get deliberately in the way of his often hungover father and he had a habit of taking his resentment for his job out on his him. During the week, he worked as a chef at a restaurant and he simply couldn't stand to watch the happy couples and families which passed through the place. He had talent but it was shackled to his festering sense of antipathy. In years past he had he had not cooked often for his wife and son. "Don't worry about it." To top it all off, Severus had chosen that morning to shout at his father that he couldn't wait to get away from him at Hogwarts. He had torn his letter into shreds in a rage and Severus had spent an hour taping it back together.

"This all seems like a waste," Lily sighed, nodding at the children playing in the harsh winter sunlight. "Not long now I suppose."

"No," Severus agreed, though he was practically counting down the days (213). Lily looked much different in normal school clothes but she stood out amongst the others as the sun caught her blazing red hair. "Can I walk you-"

"Look, it's that weird kid!" Severus tensed as one of his childhood bullies caught sight of him. "Look at those clothes. Do you know this gritter?"

"Gritter?" Lily repeated naively, squinting in the sun.

"Bum! Bag lady's son! He's trash. His father's a drunk and my uncle says his mum's a working girl-"

"If his mother works how is he a bu-"he heard Lily ask as he ran away. He slammed the door behind him reminded of why he had left the house so little before. He couldn't stand the muggles much longer. He longed to be at Hogwarts with his own people where his intelligence would be recognised instead of scorned.


He had full reign of the house whilst his mother and father were at work so he put on some records and started on his chores. He washed the dishes, cleaned the kitchen surfaces, brushed and mopped the floor, watered his mother's plants, hovered and dusted everywhere else and binned his father's beer bottles. He had just put out the bin bags, thinking about how much quicker everything would have been with magic, when Lily Evans knocked lightly on the glass of his peeling back door. "I thought you wanted to walk me home," she inquired softly. A smile tugged at Severus's lips and he swept the two books he had left out on the kitchen counter top in to his arms and stepped out into the small but well-kept back garden with a rickety old slide and swing set. "What happened to your window?" She stared at the boarded up corner of the back door with a frown. "Have you been robbed?"

"No. Dad wasn't very happy about my Hogwarts letter." Severus locked the back door and crossed the garden. He pulled back a loose shaft of wood within the tall back garden fence, held it up for Lily and they slipped through and out into a cobbled back alley.

"He wasn't proud?" Lily asked with a puzzled expression. "My parents still think it's something I've made up-like one of my stories…"

"Father just wants me to be normal. He doesn't want me to go," he explained sadly.

"But you have to go!" Lily said spiritedly, her hands curling into stubborn little fists as she led the way down the length of the alley and turned left onto another street. "It's your right!"

"Dad doesn't care much for those. He only sees wrongs. I do everything wrong." Lily stared at him with a sympathetic expression.

"Come and live with me. We'll adopt you!" she said smiling brightly and pulling on Severus's arm until he smiled back, wincing at the pain of his eye.

"That does sound nice...but I couldn't leave mum."

"Wasn't she happy? She's a witch. Wasn't she happy to have someone else who loves magic too?"

"She is happy that I get to escape from here...I just don't want to leave her behind." Snape held out a short arm to stop Lily from walking into traffic. They waited and crossed the street together holding hands. They chatted as they walked through a farmer's field and into a large expanse of grass which led to a willow tree and a small lake.

"I worry about that too...but we'll make sure to write every week. It's going to be so wonderful Sev!"


Lily was practically skipping and Severus let go of her hand looking embarrassed. He had never so much as had a friend before, never mind a nickname and it was all a little much to process. "For you. I'm not going remember."

"I'll kidnap you if I have to. I'll climb up to your window like a spider, reach through the glass and grab you and we'll fly to Hogwarts like Wendy and Peter did to Neverland." Lily was such an effervescent giggling ball of joy that Severus never wanted to be parted from her. The fight with his father seemed years away from the dappled light below their willow tree.

"But without the fairy dust," he muttered glumly.

"Oh be excited with me!" Lily hung off his arm pouting dramatically as they sat down together. "Whenever anything bad happens I just try to picture it-Hogwarts. A great white castle surrounded by clouds floating on a lake full of mermaids-" She spoke with her hands and animated expressions and Severus could almost envision Hogwarts across the lake.

"I don't think there are mermaids-merpeople-"

"Merpeople? What are those?" she asked with the enthusiastic curiosity of a child.

"European. Mermaids only live in tropical climates and Hogwarts is up north. It's cold up there. Look at this book." Lily snatched the book playfully out of his hands and stroked her hands over the title and golden castle embossed on the cover. "Mum gave it to me but she had this really old copy in the cellar when I was younger. I read it back to front a million times before Dad burnt it."

"Hogwarts: A History," Lily read aloud tracing her fingers down the leather spine. "It's so perfect...and soon it'll be ours. Let's read it!" Severus shuffled closer to her taking hold of one side of the book.

"Chapter one."


Lily had wiped the doubt clear from Severus's mind. He was going to Hogwarts. He waded through the monotony of lessons with his mother and neglect from his father with the calm of a Buddhist monk. Lily's parents would have no idea how to get to the King's Cross Platform hidden between nine and ten which the Hogwarts Express left from. Severus's mother would have to show them. She knew magic and Severus had faith that she would find a way to keep father out of the picture in order to get him to school. He walked Lily home from school most days and he listened to her talk about her day and was blunt about his own. He had lent Lily his copy of 'Hogwarts: A History' as well as 'A History of Magic' and was happy to hear that her parents seemed to be coming around. His own mother had met them for tea and explained that Hogwarts wasn't a scam and that their daughter was very special. Lily had fed and watered the owl which had remained above her bedroom window and watched in awe as it had left with her parent's pen written, postage stamped reply. They were so very protective of her but Severus's mother had insisted that Severus would take care of her at school and he would. Nothing would take his best friend from him.


They had spent several more evenings reading about Hogwarts together under the willow tree and in Lily's back garden. Weekends were no exception. By July Lily was getting in to daily trouble for daydreaming and her schoolwork was suffering. Her parents were beginning to disapprove of her friendship with Severus but he had helped her study for her big tests and she had passed them with flying colours. With the summer approaching and only two months between the pair and Hogwarts, they had read every book Severus could find on the subject once or twice and were bursting with excitement. Lily was lying on her front on the grass below the willow tree with her head stuck in a book. "Oh the Sorting Hat sounds like a brain test! What if I fail? What if this whole thing was a postal error? What if it finds out that I'm not really a witch after all-just ordinary Lily Evans, year six, class B?" she groaned closing the book and staring at it. She rolled off Severus's jacket, wrapped it around her shoulders and leaned across to restart the record in her portable player. The evening had turned chilly and dark fast but Severus's father was home from work and Lily's sister was intolerably nosy; prone to following them everywhere and listening at keyholes.

"Don't worry. You're not ordinary," Snape replied with a reassuring smile from his spot at the lake's edge. The bruise on his face had all but disappeared. "And now your parents know it."

"I think they've always known that Severus. Petunia wants to come too. She isn't very happy," Lily explained with a fed up sigh.

"I'm not surprised. The more I think about it the more it makes sense that muggles refuse to believe we exist," Severus pondered aloud, plucking blades of frosty grass from the ground. "Imagine knowing that all around you there were people with power you could only dream of- people so much better-"

"Different? Not better," Lily offered, shaking her head. "There are bad wizards just the same as there are bad…muggles."


"Which house do you think you'll be in?" Severus quickly changed the subject because he didn't want to poke holes in his utopia.

"I don't know," she said, twisting to look at him, "I don't feel like any of them. I'm not brave or helpful or clever or cunning. I'm useless." She covered her face with her arms. "Oh, they won't even let me in!" Severus came away from the water to pull his jacket sleeves away from her face.

"Maybe you'll get your own house by the lake and you can go down into your cellar and see the merpeople swimming?" Lily brightened and wiped her eyes in the soft orange glow of the sun setting in the distance.

"I hope so...What house was your mum in?" she asked, flipping open the book again to stare at the four house crests; brave Gryffindor in red and gold, cunning Slytherin in green and silver, loyal Hufflepuff in yellow and black and clever Ravenclaw in blue and bronze.

"Slytherin...and I'm more like her than anyone else in my family."

"Well that's the house for you," Lily sighed, patting his hand, "Do visit me in my lake house for redhead losers." Severus chuckled and sat down next to her on the soft ground.

"I like your hair," he told her and she wrinkled her nose and pulled it all in front of her face.

"I'll shave it off! You can have it as a wig." Severus pushed his own hair behind his ears and held hers to his face as though it was his own.

"It wouldn't suit me." Severus had never been so vocal and vivacious in his life but he trusted Lily never to tease him. "Not my colour at all. Washes out my complexion!" he said in a high girly voice as Lily pulled away from him giggling.

"You could do with some sun, you vampire!" Snape kneeled beside her on the grass, looking self-conscious.

"Don't joke," Severus retorted, "I'd love to meet one. Wouldn't you?" Lily bounced excitedly.

"Yes and become his immortal queen!"

"You like daylight too much," Severus laughed, "No one would be able to see those pretty eyes in the dark." Lily blushed, coyly blinking said emerald green eyes at him

"Shut up," Lily nudged him playfully and he shifted awkwardly."Come to the beach with me tomorrow?"


Severus stood up, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "I can't. I really can't," he replied as Lily shot up pouting, "I have housework-"

"You always have housework. Your dad works you like a slave!" she said grabbing his hand. "Come on, please!" Severus considered her plea with pursed lips but shook his head.

"I can't Lily-"

"I'll cut you a deal." The way Lily didn't talk like an eleven year old was utterly endearing and one of the many things she and Severus had in common. "If you come to the beach I will help you do housework. The two of us will finish in half the time. Yes?" Lily was smiling, raising and lowering her eyebrows and tickling Severus. "Yes?" It was both cute and comical but Severus had only been to the beach a handful of times and he had been too young to really remember. "Yes?"

"Okay. Okay!" He jumped away from her laughing. "But you have to leave before my dad gets home. He'll be furious if he finds out I left the house all day."

"I promise," Lily said, standing rigid and saluting him. "Can we read some more?" She picked up the book and held it to her chest. Severus reached in to her pocket to read the time on her father's old pocket watch.

"It's too late. Come on." He picked up her book bag and record player. "Let me walk you home. Take the book and read some more tonight." He slipped the book into her bag and helped her put on her coat. "You can tell me about it at the beach."

A/N: Writing these chapters is a great source of nostalgia because I basically spent all of my childhood running up and down backstreets pretending to be a ninja, filming parody movies with my friends or running through farmer's fields and falling in streams. I like to imagine that the Marauder's childhoods were just as innocent before the war. Also Peter Pan is life and little Snily makes me heart soar.

What do you think of them?