DISCLAIMER: YES! I do own Harry Potter! He's a short, caped and bespectacled Lego figure in the bonus room! Wow, I'm lucky!
DEDICATION: This chapter brought to you by the letter 8, the square root of N and the genre angst.
It Falls to the Young Chapter XXXV:
Just Another Bloody Living Nightmare in this Universe of Bloody Living Nightmares
Cauda muris quattuor—four rat tails
Hemina cremoris hirudinis—half a pint of leech juice
Uncia veratri—ounce of hellebore
Pocillum lacertae sanguinis—salamander blood... but how much is 'pocillum'?
Severus glanced up from the book and looked about nervously even as his hands continued slicing the hellebore. His eyes searched the dark, damp room he was so familiar with... but he knew there were no Latin dictionaries here, or any other books for that matter. Only the infinite rows of ingredient cupboards that loomed high over his head in the shadows, and the giant oak table upon which he was working, and the wooden crate he stood on so he could reach the table. No dictionaries. All the books were kept in Father's sanctum, the room at the end of the spiraling stairs he was forbidden to climb.
He had been up there only three times. Twice to clean the room—when the mess grew too much for even Father to stand—and once to leave the building altogether and enter a world he had only heard about. He had been introduced to a tall man named 'Riddle,' but the meeting was hazy in Severus' mind. It was his memory of the outside that he treasured beyond all others: his memory of the stars, glittering overhead like a handful of pixie dust strewn across the sky—the smell of green life brimming in the grass and trees—the feel of the alien wind caressing his skin...
Severus realized he was daydreaming and stopped immediately. Like all other useless activities, it was strictly forbidden, and he had a far more immediate problem to deal with: his hands, still slicing, were nearly done with the hellebore. Soon he'd have to add the salamander blood, and he still didn't know how much a 'pocillum' was. He didn't dare pause to ponder it a moment; Father kept this room dark especially so he could drift silently inside and glare at Severus, unnoticed in the shadows... and if Father saw him stop working...
He guessed. Not continuing to brew wasn't an option, and the idea of asking his father was so ludicrous it never crossed Severus' mind—so he made an educated guess. A guess, in fact, that was very nearly correct, and any Potions master at Hogwarts would have been proud to have a student who could calculate so closely the percentage of salamander blood necessary to balance the energy produced by a combination of leech juice and hellebore after taking the other ten ingredients into account...
'Very nearly correct,' however, has never produced a N.E.W.T.-level potion.
Severus added the salamander blood, the hellebore, held his breath... and the concoction exploded. Half-expecting that result, he dove under the table in time to protect himself from the hot liquid that splattered across the room; but his small sigh of relief turned into a whimper of fear when a large hand grabbed his hair and dragged him out from under the table.
"Idiotic, worthless bastard," Father hissed. Severus clambered to his feet; he was not to sit—let alone sprawl across the floor—in Father's presence, nor was he to look him in the eyes, nor speak when not addressed, nor offer an explanation when Father wasn't in the mood to hear one...
"You thought it would be amusing to blow up my potions laboratory? Is that it?" Father snarled. "You thought—" here he tightened his grip on Severus' hair, so that Severus had to fight not to cry out, "—that it would be amusing to ruin the potion Mr. Borgin is expecting tomorrow morning?"
"N-No, sir."
Father sneered and threw him to the floor. "Liar." He pulled his wand from his sleeve very slowly and deliberately, watching to be sure Severus saw every millimeter of the mahogany rod's thirteen inches appear.
Severus was curled in a quivering ball on the floor, staring up at his father and waiting with the resigned hopelessness of one who knows pain is coming and knows there is no avoiding it. The cold of the floor through his thin, ratty robes made him shiver; the appearance of the wand made him shiver noticeably. Father knew how much he feared the wand, and he used that to his advantage.
"Liar," Father repeated. "We know what happens to liars. Crucio."
Severus screamed.
Father canceled the curse sooner than he had expected, grabbed the front of Severus' robes and hoisted him into the air as though he was weightless. It was difficult, two inches from Father's crooked nose and still shaking from the Cruciatus, not to look him in the eyes, not to close his eyes, not to disobey...
"One and one eighth cup salamander blood, not one and one sixth, you pathetic, useless maggot. Do it again and get it right, or there'll be hell to pay." Father spat in his face and dropped him to the floor once more, slamming the door behind him hard enough to rattle the cauldrons on their shelves.
Only now, crumpled on the floor in a puddle of botched potion, did Severus let the tears fall. He slowly sat up and wiped the spit off his face with his sleeve; it smelled of Firewhisky, like everything else Father touched. Severus wrapped his arms around himself and closed his eyes; he was so tired, it had to be late—but he had to rebrew the poison, which would take at least three hours. It was the last of a dozen Mr. Borgin had ordered this week, the last of a dozen Severus had brewed. Father almost never brewed anymore, not when he had Severus to do the work; he simply took the credit and the money, bought more Firewhisky, and drank until he passed out in his bedroom. Severus did not mind—unconscious was how he liked his father best.
He was daydreaming again. Now he had to get up and work, when all he wanted was to slip down the corridor to the storeroom on the right, crawl beneath the tattered blanket on his makeshift mattress and fall asleep, preferably forever. Or at least for three more years, when he would be eleven and could run away to Hogwarts...
Hogwarts, A History was the one book Severus owned, the only book he'd ever dared steal—during the second cleaning of the forbidden room upstairs—and Severus read at least a page of it every night, no matter how tired he was, before falling asleep. It was the only dream he had—the hope that someday, somehow, someone would see fit to help him enroll at Hogwarts, where there was an enchanted ceiling and enormous, sunlit grounds and dormitories so Hogwarts would be his home and he wouldn't have to see Father ever again...
Another door slammed shut somewhere above him; Severus' eyes flashed open; he climbed shakily to his feet and began pushing the wooden crate towards the cupboards so he could reach the hellebore. One last, solitary tear fell from his cheek to the floor. As he left it behind, continuing towards the cupboards, Severus wished with everything he had that this was just a nightmare, just another bloody living nightmare in this universe of bloody living nightmares, that he would wake up at Hogwarts where Father would never find him...
And suddenly everything was dark.
Severus?
He felt sheets about him, he was in bed—why, how? I never finished the potion, Father will kill me—but the sheets weren't frayed, they were silk-soft and warm. The only sheets of that quality belonged to Father—Merlin, he really will kill me...
Severus?
Someone else was on the bed; Severus' heartbeat quickened... but it wasn't Father, he was far larger than that... and his mind burned with poisonous flames, never bubbled and sparkled and was certainly not pink.
Sevvveeruus? Did you wake up?
It took a good deal of effort for Severus to open his eyes; when he did he saw a bright blue pair right in front of his nose. The eyes belonged to a little girl, a little girl with pigtails. Severus blinked and then he remembered. Nymphadora...
Of course, silly. I'm really glad you woke up, Severus. I was worried about you; you've been asleep a really, really long time...
The memories were rushing back now; Severus bit his lip and tried to ask how many days 'a really, really long time' was—but his throat contracted painfully and no sound came out of his mouth.
Oh, Mummy said you can't talk, Severus. She said you hurt your throat from yelling and you have to not talk and then it'll be better again.
Mummy... Andromeda Tonks. More memories. And her husband, Ted. Potions master. Quiet. Funny. Nymphadora's father...
Father...
Severus began to tremble violently once more. All the memories, everything he had worked so hard to lock away... It was all out in the open once more, and twice as vivid. Severus didn't know if he had the strength to lock them away for a second time.
Severus? Are you 'kay? You don't look good. Nymphadora was peering at him even more closely now, concerned; Severus lay on his back helplessly, looking up into her eyes and blinking back tears.
He had a sudden desire to sit up. His arms, unfortunately, refused to support his weight, but with Nymphadora's help he managed to maneuver his way up the pillows until he was essentially in a vertical position. Along the way Severus discovered that his arms and legs were not only weak, but rigid and shaking and extremely sore; that lead him to thoughts of the Cruciatus, which again reminded him of Father...
Severus held out his arms. Nymphadora climbed willingly into his lap; he wrapped his arms about her tightly and tried to pretend he wasn't crying. As unacknowledged tears poured down his face, his mind, of its own volition, darted in and out of Nymphadora's presence, strengthening their mental connection a hundred-fold so he would never be lost and alone in the dark ever again...
"Nymphadora? You've been awful quiet, is everything okay?" Andromeda poked her head through the curtains around his bed and stopped dead. They stared at each other for a second, the tears threatening to overwhelm Severus' vision. Then Andromeda sat beside him on the bed, took his shaking shoulders in her arms and laid his head on her chest; she kissed his forehead and began murmuring a soft stream of reassuring platitudes, which made Severus cry even harder.
He pulled away from Nymphadora's mind and plunged into Andromeda's, soaking up as much of the affection and reassurance and kindness he could hold, creating and strengthening whatever connection he had with her all in one go.
A moment later Ted appeared at the curtains; he did not hesitate but joined the growing congregation on the bed, ruffled Severus' hair and looked at him with relieved, anxious eyes. Severus darted into Ted's mind the moment he sat down. It was a field of soft green grass, basking in the sunlight, as comforting as the warm weight of Ted's hand on his shoulder. By the time he'd finished building that connection, Remus had arrived, a half-finished Transfiguration essay still in hand; then Sirius and James, still in sweaty Quidditch uniforms...
They crowded about Severus on the bed and he closed his eyes, still leaping anxiously from one mind to another, pulling them all closer to him and closer together with a frantic single-mindedness. The bed creaked again as yet another weight settled on it; the other minds gave way and Severus found himself in Dumbledore's arms, clutching his robes and beard as if they were his last link to sanity. He began weaving the lemon flavored dandelion-presence in with the others, clutching them together as tightly as he was gripping the Headmaster's robes. The burn of embarrassment was buried completely, overridden by an overwhelming fear… He would not, could not, be alone in the dark... Never again...
"Welcome back, my boy," Dumbledore whispered in his ear. "Andromeda has some Dreamless Sleep for you, if you could open your mouth..." Severus complied and a thin stream of potion was poured down his throat. He swallowed and fell asleep immediately, reassured by the presence of the seven people who meant more to him then the rest of the world combined.
Sooo... there was a peek at Sev's childhood for you. Good thing he's got friends now, ain't it? Hope ya'll enjoyed. Thanks for reading and reviewing! Huggbees!