Wonderful chapter 35

Where You Belong

Halloween 1966 went on. Severus and his weed dealing daddy were heading out of the riverfront area where they lived. They were heading into better areas. For Sev this meant better candy. For Toby it meant nervous buyers. When they reached a house where Toby had arranged a drop Severus was the only kid going up to that door. There was a gate, and it looked dark. One nosey mother of another little trick-or-treater pointed out, "There's no light there. I'm not sure if any of the children should go up there."

"Oh," Toby thought of a convincing lie. "He's going to surprise a friend of mine who wanted to see the little blighter in his costume."

"Oh," The woman appeared to be embarrassed, but placated.

The little wizard was knocking on the door. A shade on the door window flipped up. The boy saw a pair of eyes look out at him, than the blind fell shut. The door opened and Severus found that the eyes were attached to a nervous man who was skinny, and wearing a loud colored flower pattern shirt. "Hey little guy," the man said while looking out to the road. He seemed jumpy. "You Toby's kid?"

"Yes."

"Cool. You got the stuff?"

"Yes."

"A man of few words." Sev didn't even respond to this. "Down to business then. Here is the money my good man." Sev took the money and handed the man three bags of the funny tea. He wandered if the man would notice there was one short. The man ruffled up the boys hair before ending with, "See ya little guy."

Severus' lip curled into a sneer as the door shut. "Not if I can help it, bug jerk," he said under his breath. Toby saw the sly grin on his son's face when he handed him the money. Tobias counted the bills to make sure the boy hadn't pocketed some of it. 'Must have gotten some sweets as well.' If Toby only knew, what Sev had gotten was him. The little boy wasn't sure how he was going to do it, but he would use his father's own tricks to as the saying goes, fix his wagon.

Toby wanted the boy to keep doing as he had been and not call any attention to himself. "Only one more, then we can go to that fancy neighborhood you wanted to go to." The boy forced a smile at his father's words. At this point he didn't care, but he wasn't going to say no either. After a few more blocks of trick-or-treating in this part of town, Toby's last drop off was over and Severus was relieved. They were making their way to what Tobias called the 'fancy' neighborhood. Lots of kids who didn't live there had the same idea. People still had to go through the archway of the now gone gate that in years past kept such riffraff as the Snapes out of the once exclusive area of the city.

At one of the houses Severus could hear the lady giving out candy say to her husband, "I don't mind the ones from the Middlebury subdivision coming here, but some of those older kids from the 'End' don't' even bother with costumes. I'm not going to give candy to the ones with no costume."

"It's a holiday dear," the husband reminded. "Plus they'll probably come back and egg the car or the house if you don't."

"What do we pay taxes for?" There was no reply. One could imagine the man hiding behind a newspaper ignoring his wife as she continued, "What are the police for?"

It was the first time Severus felt a bit uneasy about where he lived. He wondered if he woman would spot him as a Spinner's End kid right off the bat. She didn't. "Oooh, look, it's Merlin." He was afraid she might pinch his cheek or something, thankfully she didn't. Her hands were too busy holding out a big bowl of chocolate bars. "Now you go and pick out two." The boy did just that. "Oh you just look so cute, take another." He looked doubtful, but Sev reached in for one more.

'She couldn't tell I was from the riverfront,' Severus thought. He was feeling as if he had gotten away with something. This would be one of the boy's first lessons on how appearances often hid the truth.

Though Tobias was itching to get home and count his money from tonight's venture, he let his son keep celebrating the holiday. The boy was actually getting a fairly good haul of sweets. When the bag looked as if it were getting too heavy for the boy to carry, Tobias figured it was time to go home. Severus didn't even mind, he was happy with his Halloween loot. Little did he know how close he was to someone he had hoped to see again ever since the day in the park. Indeed Severus would have missed them all together if he had not heard one of them complaining. "I still don't understand why I had to be the devil." He didn't know the blond girl's name, but he knew it was the same one. She stood there in a little red devil costume with her hands folded around her pitchfork.

The mother explained, "You're too big for the other costume. It fits Lily, so she gets to wear it. And I think the two of you together look cute."

Then he saw her. Now he knew her name. The red haired girl whom Severus was sure had a touch of magic. She was in a white and gold angel costume. When she ran back from the door of the house she had just come from her wings shimmered in the streetlights. He could have swore there were a few times her feet were not touching the ground. Severus took in a gasping breath. When he breathed out he said the name he now knew was hers, "Li-ly."

"Oi, Sev," Toby called noticing he had walked three more houses ahead while his son watched the other kids. "Let's go."

Severus looked back and forth between the little angel and his father a few times. Lily's mother was taking the two girls in the opposite direction, but he waited till they were almost out of sight.

"You deaf?" Toby growled. He was now right next to Sev.

"No," Severus mumbled.

"Then what's the hold up?"

"Nothing."

The father began walking away, this time the son was right on his heals. He began to think, 'Next year I'll have to look for the devil costume. She'll of outgrown the angel.' He took one more look behind himself and could barely make out the shinny little wings. Again he sighed out, "Li-ly."

"What?" Toby heard something, but he didn't know what.

"Nothing."

Toby shook his head wondering why if it were nothing did the boy keep opening his mouth. Severus didn't so much a peep the rest of the way home. In his mind however he was trying to figure out how he was going to 'run into' Lily again. They were all fantasies as he had no idea where she lived. He still believed he had to run into her again. She might be the only other magical kid in the whole of the city. There just were not that many witches and wizards living among muggles. The walk back to Spinner's End, and the last house on the street brought into sharp relief something the boy had not thought of before. The houses in Victoria Lane were like nothing he'd ever seen before. They were big and clean with lawns that were landscaped. Even in the Middlebury subdivision where the houses all looked the same, they had yards and no trash wafting about them. Spinner's end was all cement and bricks. There were no trees or grass here. There were overturned trash bins and rather large rats running here and there. For the first time in his short life, the boy realized there was a difference in people. It was the first time he felt less than others. Why did they live in such a crappy place when only a few blocks away there was suburban heaven?

'I bet that's where she lives,' Severus thought to himself. The boy's thoughts were interrupted by his father grabbing a bin lid and tossing it at the rats that were congregating on the Snape stoop. "Get out of here you filthy - - " Toby stopped yelling as he realized the rats couldn't understand him anyway. He had been wondering almost the same thing. 'Why do we live in this rat hole.' Even when they had had some money they lived there. Toby thought of the money he had made that night and wondered if Eileen would consider leaving the place.

It wasn't that late, but Tobias was tired. "I'm going to bed," he notified. He vaguely remembered Ele telling him to inspect the candy Severus brought home. He looked in the pillowcase he had in his own hands. It only had a couple of candy bars in it. He took them out and saw that they looked fine. "Here." He handed the chocolate to Severus. "You can eat this, but wait till your mum looks at the stuff in yours." With that Toby climbed the stairs to go to sleep. This worked out better than Sev would have ever wished. He had been planning an elaborate reason to go upstairs before his father got a look at what was in his pillowcase. Now he didn't even need it. As far as not eating any of the candy in his pillowcase, fat chance.

Severus dumped all of the candy on the dusty braided rug on the living room floor and began sorting it out into favorites ,and not so favorites. In the middle of all of it was the bag of funny tea. The little wizard was thinking where the most strategic place to leave it for his mother to find and there would be no question that his father had forgotten it there, not that he had planted it there. If Toby even suspected Sev was the one setting him up, the boy might not reach that seventh birthday that loomed a little more than two months in the future. Toby would tear him limb from limb. Sev knew he would be safe to leave it in-between the cushions of the sofa. Wasn't' that where his father had sat every night that week smoking another bag of it.

The boy was clever enough to make the bag look like it wasn't new, or full. He ripped the top open and took out a handful that he dumped down the sink before stuffing it in the spot he knew his mother would eventually find it. Indeed when Eileen Snape came home from work early in the morning hours she was screeching, "TOBIAS SNAPE! WHAT DID YOU DO!"

A groggy Severus woke up thinking, 'Wow, that was quick.'

She wasn't yelling about what the boy thought she was yelling about. She was yelling about what she saw the first thing she came in the door; That being her son sleeping on a large pile of candy. Toby being so used to Eileen's Banshee like rants only turned over in bed. Severus heard his mother storm up the stairs and begin to ream out his father. "I only asked you to do one thing. One lousy thing Tobias Snape and you couldn't even do that!"

"ComeoneEle." Toby ran his words together. "What'sthebigdeal?"

"The big deal is, our son is downstairs laying on a huge pile of unchecked, teeth rotting sweets!" Eileen went on, "I asked you to look at the candy to make sure it was safe, you can't be careful these days. AND I told you to take out anything hard or sticky that might break any of Sev's teeth. And I asked you to make sure he didn't eat too much of it and rot his teeth any more than they already are."

"Good grief woman." Toby rolled over again. Ele whipped the sheets off of him.

"Don't you good grief me. Get your lazy behind downstairs and sort it out." Eileen sat and took off her shoes. She was tired herself.

Severus could hear the thuds of footsteps he knew did not belong to his mother, but he pretended to sleep on. He felt himself being pulled up by his costume cape. He could hear it ripping as well. "I TOLD YOU," Toby now yelled at Sev. "You could only eat the candy I gave you!"

"I - - I didn't eat any of it," Sev lied. "I was just sorting it out."

Toby threw the boy away from the pile of candy. He hit the floor. "I'll be the one doing the sorting out."

Sev's dad began to sort out the offensive pieces that his mother had thought would ruin his teeth more than they already were. Any hard candy, or lollipops, or gooey things like taffy or - - "No, not the licorice, that's my favorite."

"Don't care what your favorite is," Toby gruffed. "Jawbreakers?" They went to the offensive pile. Severus was beginning to think the only thing left was going to be chocolate. To add insult to injury, Toby popped one of the caramel toffees into his own mouth. "No need for it to go to waste." When he was done Severus' pile of acceptable candy was considerably small. "And you don't get any of it unless your mum tells you, you can." Toby stuffed the chocolate into a draw in a desk, and the unacceptable candy went back into the pillowcase. "I'll bring this upstairs where you can't get at it."

Severus' eyes burned at the spot where his father had stood as if he could set the man on fire if he looked intently enough. He couldn't wait for his mother to find the funny tea. He knew Toby would get his when she did.

tbc