Chapter I
- Gloomy Summers –
A river flowed slowly, perfectly matching the rhythm of the small town whose banks it was snaking and which could be seen in the distance drowned in a misty fog. That was Cokeworth, maybe not the best place for someone to take a summer break and not only had that to do with the lack of tourist attractions, but also with the monotony of people passing through narrow streets, hostilely holding their heads to the ground and bumping into each other occasionally, as they rushed to their even more tedious workplaces, although, usually, no one was actually rushing anywhere.
Among the dry weeds that grazed the shore, just as slowly stepped a tall, slim man wearing a long shirt with the sleeves pulled over his elbows. He had a carelessly shaved brown mustache, a hooked nose and some very unfriendly eyes. He was holding over his shoulder a wooden fishing rod that had been broken at some point because it was bandaged in a worn, but resistant duck-tape.
The man stopped when he reached a small hill and slid his hand to his forehead as he frowned at the huge chimney rising threateningly behind the river. The symphony of hammers, saws and tools used by the workers who were striving to surround the chimney into a true industrial fortress, could be heard in the distance. The man with the rod knew very well that a detergent factory would seriously affect the quality of water and the life of fish.
His frown intensified even more as he looked down the hill. He seemed ready to shout, but changed his mind and managed to keep his patience until a fragile, small and pale boy struggled to reach him, with his arms occupied by a large fishing net and a rusty box. An even greater challenge for him was trying not to slip as they went down the slope, afraid that the bait box might spill all over him again. Not that earthworms would have disgusted him in any way. He had grown accustomed to them, but clumsy hands were not something his father would have easily overlooked, and he wasn't naive enough to repeat the same mistake.
They had finally reached the edge of the water. The man left his fishing rod on the grass and straightened his back a little, investigating the undisturbed surface.
"Set the net." he murmured without turning to the boy.
But the boy followed his command immediately and plunged the net into the water while his father pressed the first worm into the hook. The child sat himself on the sun-burned grass and sighed helplessly with his dark eyes focused on his own impatient reflection.
His father owned a small fish store on the outskirts of the town and didn't took him along too often when fishing because he didn`t want, as he was saying, to have him stuck in his throat. But of all the days he could have decided to show his son the secrets of his job, he had chosen the one when the youngster had to arrive somewhere before noon.
The boy sighed some more at the trouts that were surrounding the net and were not leaving any evidence that they had ever been there excepting the little air circles that rose from the depths and extended on the glossy surface. This could have taken very well all day long...
He gave the fish an upset look, though he knew it was absurd to blame them for avoiding their categorical end. However, it seemed as he wanted the trouts to change their minds at least for this one occasion.
Just then, an entire flank of fish began to sail as if they were driven by the common belief that the entire net was made up of worms all knotted together and they clung to it without holding any resistance. The little boy did not seem surprised, as much as relieved by the sudden turn of events.
"Are these enough?" he said, pulling the heavy net through the grass.
"How did you ..." his father puzzled as he brought to the surface the third fish caught in his hook.
But his astonished expression turned into a merciless one in less than a second in which he seemed to weigh the matter.
He hastened towards the boy and grabbed him by his relatively long hair, snarling in his ear:
"You don`t come to me with these nonsense, boy... if I haven't made myself clear untill now, let this be my last warning. Understood?"
"Sure." said the boy who kept himself strangely calm, almost bored, as if he was completely used to the scenario.
"Good. Now get lost! " the man growled, pushing the child forward and causing him to fall to one side.
But he got back up again casually. Perhaps it did not happen as he had planned, but at least he was free not to delay where he truly wished himself to be. Though he took one last glance back, somewhat hurt.
His father was checking one of the fish from the net on all of its portions, maybe trying to find out the unusual mechanism that had made it such an easy prey. He turned the fish to the other end. The temptation was a little too much.
"Ah!" the fisherman said as the fish's tail slapped his face.
The boy let a tiny, satisfied smile escape the corner of his mouth and rushed his footsteps before Tobias Snape could realize what had actually happened.
The boy ran over meadows that surrounded the town, passing by a deserted playground whose swings were lightly creaking in the wind. He reached a small grove in the center of which was a thick oak made up of three thinner trunks entwined together.
For a moment he thought he got there too soon, but just then, a redheaded, freckled little girl jumped from behind the tree, causing him to flinch.
"Sev!"
"Oh, Lily ... You're here."
"Yes, and good you got here faster too. You know, I think Dad was right, it will surely start to rain soon, "Lily said, looking reproachfully at the gray clouds that were gradually conquering the washed blue of the sky." So we got to hurry! "
The little girl pulled out of one of the large pockets of her dots pattern dress, a piece of colored paper.
Sev approached her, reading the note in his mind:
Maybe you think I'm cunning
But when winter is coming
To leave my house I should
For the children to bring food
But I'm still happy with what I got
I'm protected by my furry coat.
"Hm ... but it's quite obvious." Sev concluded rubbing his chin between his fingers.
"That's right. It's obviously ... Mum's wardrobe! "
"The spinney burrow !" spoke Sev at the same time "Wait ... what?"
"Ah, the burrow, well this makes more sense. You're always better than I am with the riddles. " Lily admitted.
"Only you are the best with the maps."
Lily smiled and started running.
"Quick, Sev! The rain! "
Yet the rain had not came in their way to the thick bushes, and the patch of cloudy sky was completely covered behind the high crowns of the trees.
The burrow they were talking about belonged to a fox that, during the previous winter, went out on the streets in search of food.
Lily was desperate to help, and alongside her father, Mr. Evans, they all went at first at the edge of the forest, leaving her some chicken or turkey sandwiches, then they dared to follow her deeper into the little wood and discovered that the fox was actually a caring mother bringing all the food to her three cubs. And, judging by the fact Mr. Evans was the one who organized their treasure hunts, the riddle was really not that difficult to solve.
"Oh, hi Nancy!" Lily greeted as she bent down to the burrow dug into the ground and covered in green moss and leaves.
The fox approached her unsecured and accepted Lily to touch her muzzle. But when the little girl reached for the cubs, the three younger foxes crouched in a corner.
Lily sighed defeated. Sev, who was waiting outside, shook his head amused. Lily had been trying to make friends with them from the start. She even gave them proper names even though Sev had no idea how could she make the difference and always be able to tell which one of them was Ralph.
"I still think we're making progress!" Lily informed him, her head still hidden in the darkness of the hole.
When she came out she was holding a small wooden chest from which Sev extracted a map of the river and its surroundings drawn in a coloring crayon.
"Lily, will you do the honors?" he asked cheerfully, handing it back to her.
"With pleasure!" said Lily, doing a theatrical bow.
Just a few minutes later, Sev returned to the bank of the river, but following Lily closely and prepared to warn her in case of hitting a tree since the little girl had her head hidden behind the map that was captivating her completely.
"And one ... two ... three more steps left after the anthill and... aha!"
In front of them laid an old shopping cart stuck in a branch that went down to the edge of the river. Lily dropped her sandals, turn her dress up to her knees and stepped into the shallow water.
Sev, who was wearing shoes a bit too big for the size of his feet, followed her actions. Inside the cart was a teddy bear with numerous stitches and a big patch on its belly.
"Mister Picklie Wink? How did you get in here? " asked Lily her oldest toy ever.
She picked Mister Picklie Wink and shook him slightly checking if her father hadn't hidden the next clue in his padding.
"Lily, wait. What if he is the actual clue? " suggested Sev.
Lily looked at the teddy bear confused for a moment, but then a gleam of clarity seemed to light up her intense green eyes.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" she asked mysteriously.
"The Witch's Hut!" they both said, this time in sync.
The Witch's Hut was, in fact, a small group of ruins, rumored to have had once belonged to the stone house of a lonely and unfriendly old woman who had chosen to isolate herself in the middle of the woods when their little town was nothing more than a fair. It was said that the woman in question had been the author of some really strange events because several people had confessed hearing stifling explosions followed by clouds of smoke in every imaginable color rising from the cottage's chimney and covering the whole forest. Even the wild animals were keeping themselves away from the old woman's home. So it was that in case of any minor or major disaster happening in the fair, the people were hurrying to blame the one baptized by them, The Cursed Crone. Although she hadn't even been at the same spot when, for instance, the wheels of the wood wagon had given up and all the wheat had been spilled into the river.
Even though Sev was skeptical about bigger part of that story, he and Lily had a very good reason to believe that where today laid broken pieces of walls and moldy, almost disintegrated planks, once did indeed live a real witch.
Anyhoo, when Lily was younger she used to play pretend she was an explorer among those ruins. Mr. Picklie Wink was her assistant, and one night, she forgot him there. Not wanting at any cost to sleep without him, Mr. Evans was forced to go searching for him with a lantern through the woods. Sev and Lily didn't know each other back then, but the girl had told him the anecdote so many times that he was feeling like he lived it in Mr. Evans's place.
"We did it, Sev! We found the treasure!"
The treasure proved to consist in a generous tray of cupcakes decorated in purple frosting with star-shaped decorations, placed on the remains of what had once been an integral stone table.
Sev was disappointed. Not because he didn't consider Mr. Evans' cupcakes a worthwhile prize - their clues searches were always ending with appetizing snacks, but he had hoped the treasure hunt would take a little longer before he had to return home.
Lily was right about the rain coming. She hadn't even finished her first cupcake before a tiny drop of water touched her tiny freckled nose.
"Save the cupcakes!" she shouted, holding the round tray in front of her as she ran where a door had once been.
Sev followed her quickly.
"I don't think we can get home until it gets worse!" Lily said.
"That's fine. Maybe we can find a temporary shelter. "
"Hey, yes ..." Lily realized seeming to radiate enthusiasm instead of being affected by the water drops that were getting bigger and bigger, "Do you think Nancy takes us in until it's over?"
Sev was not that sure about the fox's position on hosting some wet and self-invited guests, but her burrow was, in fact, the closest to the Witch's Hut.
And so it was made that in less than five minutes, he was crouching under the ground next to Lily, who was trying to lure a fox cub with half of a cupcake.
"Give up, Lily. Maybe Ralph is on a diet. "
"Yes, yes, very funny Sev." Lily said, not very upset, "And just so that you know ... this is Dave!"
Dave smelled the wrapping paper of the cupcake while Lily was not paying attention to him, then cringed uninterested next to his two brothers who were wrapped in their mother's protective fluffy tail. Sev thought they were some very lucky little guys, and not just because their red fur blanket was shielding them from the cold breeze slightly coming in from outside as the rain was intensifying.
"Listen. Sev? Do wizards make cupcakes too? " Lily asked after a while.
"Lily, I told you ..." snorted Sev "Cupcakes, apple pies, cherrie tarts ... I suspect there are things the entire human race has in common." he continued, studying the sticky paper wrap left in his hand.
"Then I have another good reason to hurry packing up my bags!" Lily said excitedly.
"Oh, we still have time. Our letters haven't even arrived yet. " said Sev relaxed, resting his back on the spherically dug surface.
Only instead, the mention of the letters caused Lily to agitate anxiously as she slightly clashed the cupcake tray putted between them.
"So are you really sure it's coming? I mean, you sure are, but with me is different ... Are you really sure that I ... I mean ... "
"Lily, I'm a hundred percent convinced of your magical powers." said Sev categorically.
Lily was special, and he knew it, he knew it from the very start, from the first day when, following her from the distance, he had found the first child in Cokeworth with whom he had something in common - they were wizards! Their destiny was not narrowed by the limits those without magic were sometimes creating even for themselves, and they had a new world to discover together. But unfortunately, whenever Lily did something remarkable, something she couldn't explain herself, such as flying from a swing or changing the color of a scarf when she decided that purple didn't suit her and that green was highlighting her eyes better, her doubt that her imagination wasn't just messing around with her, was not completely erased, and the reason was a simple one.
"Just don't pay her any mind, okay? She's trying to discourage you. That's what Muggles do. "
"Oh, come on, Sev, that word is't very nice, even though I'm not sure Tuney knows exactly what it means ..." Lily said thoughtfully.
Tuney, meaning Petunia, was Lily's two years older sister. There was nothing magical about her, not even her younger sister's lust for life. All Petunia did was binding the smallest things about someone and turn them into insults or gossip. But even though she had repeatedly disagreed about Lily's abnormality, Sev suspected that Petunia Evans was, in fact, green with envy about the talent she didn't inherited as well. In fact, on one way or another, this talent may not have been inherited at all. None of Lily's relatives possessed any magical abilities, meaning they were what all wizards and witches called Muggles, well, except those in the United States.
"Then what do you say about No-Majes?" he suggested.
"Hm ..." Lily concentrated "Okay, that sounds better." she accepted, regaining her smile.
When the rain stopped, Lily stepped into the muddy ground of the burrow's entrance with the air of a prisoner who had just been released after decades of bondage. The first thing she did, as always, was to lift her chin in search of a rainbow.
"I think you have a better chance finding a lightning bolt," said Sev, placing the tray containing the six left cupcakes on the nearest tree log and while looking at the heavy, thick clouds.
"Then we're in luck I brought these," Lily said, removing two paper bags from one of her pockets "Let's share what's left!"
"Okay, but what about the tray?"
"What about it?"
"Seriously? Sometimes I wonder which one of us went to Mugg ... uh, the No-Majes school. Metal attracts electricity. It's dangerous to have it at such time with you." Sev said with a concern in his voice that nullified the mild criticism of the remark.
"Calm, Sev. You have to look at the bright side, if the rain starts again I can take cover under it. "
"Lily, were you even listening at what I just told you?" asked Sev, upset and panicked at the same time.
Lily chuckled.
"I know. I was just playing with you a little. "
"Yes, very funny, what can I say..." said Sev, crossing his arms angrily, but not for long. "Just look after yourself, okay?"
"You too." Lily said with a crystalline smile, giving him one of the paper bags with wet spots from the frosting on it.
They said goodbye, promising to meet again the next day, which lifted a bit the dry feeling Sev kept about returning home.
Sev walked along the rusty parapet that separated him from the river bank and then made a turn to a narrow, cobbled street. He had learned since he was small that the best technique of survival here was avoiding any visual contact with the poorly disposed passersby, and therefore, bending his head to the ground. Of course, it couldn't be said it was a flawless maneuver.
"Watch where you're going, kid!" shouted an old woman with a fuzzy beret when he hit one of her bags that seemed to be filled with cans because the impact did not affect her alone.
"Ouch! Uh ... sorry. "
The old woman fixed her discolored scarf on her neck, then carried on her path with the heavy weight pulling her back a little, but no one beside whom she was passing seemed to notice her, even less to be willing to help, not even the massive man wearing a jumpsuit, who was opening a sewer's cover plate.
"The rain is sinking us again." he murmured under his breath as he bent over the hole in the pavement.
Sev crept through tall but tight brick houses that all looked pretty much the same excepting the fact the most economical inhabitants kept their lights off, even with the humid clouds creating a late evening effect.
The street lamps placed on the sidewalks also saved money. Most of them never worked very well anyway.
He turned left towards Spinners End, a street that, as the name suggested, was a total dump. He stopped in front of the last in the row of houses. The door was not locked. The risk of the thieves was quite low in the area because nothing was attractive at all, not even for them.
He entered directly into a cramped living room where he could distinguish the brown hair of his father behind the back of the worn armchair in which he was reading his newspaper. Although he flinched a little into his sit when he heard the creaking door closing, the man seemed to adopt the treatment of silence, vigorously turning the page to the next article, pretending he heard nothing.
Sev decided to play his game and went unnoticed into the kitchen. Dirty dishes were waiting to be washed in an old, chipped, ceramic sink. A basket full of stinky fish was sitting on the damp floor next to an unstable closet with shelves filled with jars. But when Sev approached it, he did not intend to get a juicy cucumber or pepper. He moved a large jar, making room for a small, dirty one, with its content unable to be seen. He took the tiny jar out and began to rotated its lid five times clockwise, twice counterclockwise and four more as the first ones. The shelf closet moved to the left, colliding the fish basket a bit, but without producing any other noise. A hole in the wall opened leading the boy to a set of stairs to a storage room.
The storage room was full of old, dusty things, including the remains of a wooden table, several broken fishing rods, rusty and incomplete tool kits, crates containing miserable bottles sometimes used to collect broth, and the deflated wheels of a bicycle. On one of the walls was hanging the broken glass framed portrait of a thin, young girl wearing a uniform and below whom it was written in small, golden letters, Eileen Prince, Captain of the Gobstones Team. Sev stretched to the photograph on some wooden crates, took it out from its nail and drew the letter P with his finger in the middle of the square of dust-free wall formed in the hollow of the frame. The bricks backed away in favor of a new hidden entrance. Sev carefully put the portrait back into its place and took a big step forward before the bricks settled themselves back to normal behind him.
He found himself in a room that looked at least strange compared to the rest of the house. It resembled a laboratory with stone furniture - three tables placed perpendicular to each other and which were practically fencing the room. Cauldrons of all sizes, knives, tweezers, mortars, scales and an old microscope were piled up all over them. Several shelves with display cases were suspended on the walls and hosting bottles of various shapes and empty vials, clean till shine. On the more simple, but resistant shelves stood jars that witch, unlike the ones in the kitchen, contained substances in much more unusual colors, some even phosphorescent or appearing to be foaming, others gelatinous or filled with plants kept alive in greenish liquids, or strange animal-origin components such as giant bulged eyes, long claws, pieces of fur or feathers.
At the farthest table could be seen the back of a supple woman with black and greasy hair kept in a untidy bun. She was mixing fast in a silver cauldron.
"Hi, mum." Sev said quietly enough not to spoil her concentration, but loud enough to be heard.
His mother turned surprised at him. She had a very weird appearance as she was wearing a floral-patterned kitchen apron, leather gloves and big protection goggles that made her black eyes look like those in the jar.
"Ah, Severus, it's you." she said in a neutral voice, returning urgently to the her mix.
Still, Severus approached her. In the platinum cauldron, a thick, pinkish liquid was bubbling.
"Want a cupcake?" he offered, despite knowing full well that food should not be taken out of bags in such an environment.
"Hm, cupcakes you say ... what do they contain?" the woman asked without turning her attention away from her work.
"Uh, well I'm pretty sure it's vanilla, but ..."
"Ah, vanilla!" she interrupted him. "Good thing you reminded me, I ran out of vanilla blossoms! They are basic ingredients in ... "
" The Strenght Potion, Memory Elixir, Invisibility Draught and the Manegro Potion, I know." listed Severus.
"And do not forget the Laughing Potion, although it seems to me a very ..."
"Useless one ..." Severus continued her sentence dully.
"Yes." the mother approved, finally stopping from spinning the cauldron's contents. "Well, I'd better go back to work. It's almost time for dinner. " she said, glancing at the cuckoo clock that seemed very unfitting in the cavernous background of the potions lab, and was sitting behind a pile of old books wrapped in black or brown leather.
"Well perhaps I could help you finish faster." Severus suggested as his mother went to the ingredients shelves.
She didn't seem to have heard him, and so he tried again.
"What is this? Another Anti-Cough Potion?" he thought, judging by the hue and thickness of the mixture.
"Close enough." seemed the mother suddenly more interested in the topic of the conversation.
"The Revive Potion. Although the confusion is understandable, I have yet to add the Triton scales."
The potion maker re-approached the table, sprinkling some crumbly scales from a former salt container. The pink quickly turned into bloody red.
"And this should be enough." Severus' mother said, dividing the elixir into three hourglass-shaped bottles she placed in a locked cupboard containing the recipients of many other finished potions.
Most of them were healing serums, though Severus didn't know if it was worth thinking about his mother considering potentially preventive a reviving from coma potion.
Suddenly, a small crow that looked scary realistic came out of the clock with a high-pitched croaking: "Tobby is approaching the kitchen, I repeat, Tobby is approaching the kitchen!"
"Great, what does he want now?" asked the mother ostentatiously, removing a thin piece of wood from the front pocket of her apron.
She whistled the air with her wand making to appear a floating tray of trout cooked in tomato sauce. Then she turned once on her heels and in a fraction of a second, disappeared without a trace, with the tray.
Severus sighed. Maybe some parents were arguing because they didn't like each other's hobbies, like fixing for fun their friends' cars or always keeping their reading club in the living room, but his did not agree because one had magical occupations, and the other had difficulty accepting even the degree of truth of the news in which it was stated that a puppy had saved a man from the fire or that someone invented sneakers with arches that could jump up to five feet, in other words, whatever seemed strange to him and which he had never heard of before. And yet, his mother had chosen Tobias Snape as her husband. Severus had never understood what she saw in him. They didn't even have much in common, unless you took into account the fact that they were both trying to sweep Severus out of their way.
He surrounded with his eyes the deserted laboratory that his mother kept secret using so many protocols. Sometimes he wondered how she managed to arrange it without his father noticing. All he knew was that the most prudent thing to do was never to bring up magic into the house. Maybe that's why he liked spending time in Lily's company so much. She loved hearing him talk about magic. It was a nice contrast.
And yet he began to retrospect the fish incident from the morning. He could swear he was hearing his parents' tireless arguments and counterarguments above him, and he could easily guess what the controversial and debated topic was, as usual - him. Maybe in a way it was better like this. At least it was a slightly more relevant discussion. The other day they had been screaming at each other because his mother hadn't looked very well on the mustard label and had bought an extra spicy one from the store. Yes, clearly the wisest thing to do was to slip unobserved into his bedroom.
Avoiding the kitchen, he took some steep stairs. His room was on the mansard. It was not spacious at all, and the sloping roof caused an even stronger cloister feeling. Like his mother's lab, the room was fenced, but with shelves crammed with dozens of old books. Some were scattered on the floor or on the small desk in front of the window that was integrated into the ceiling, also filled with crumpled paper sheets, graphical pencils, a few writing feathers, and a small, unsupported telescope.
Among the books were interesting titles such as Jinxes for the Jinxed, Basic Hexes for the Busy and the Vexed,Curses and Counter-Curses, Secrets of the Dark Arts,The Imperius Curse and How to Abuse it or Unforgivable Curses and their Legal Implications. All the volumes had once belonged to his mother. She had helped him complete his own collection however, because she wanted to create him an idea about the magical world in which he had not grown, but where he would have to live. In her opinion, it was a more dangerous world than Severus could have ever imagined. But Severus would have given up anytime the safe and predictable life of the Muggle World for the exciting and risky one of the wizards.
Severus could have counted on the fingers of one hand the times his father had visited his room, but in case he would had done so, in his Muggle eyes, the titles would have switched into mathematics or biology textbooks and common fairy tales for children's lecture.
Under aged sorcerers were not allowed to do magic spell outside of their schools, but, by simply reading about them, Severus could barely wait to try the memorized incantations with a wand in his hand. His mother came from a very old magus family who did not shy away from dark magic even though it was viewed with suspicion and detested by many wizards who considered it dangerous or downright evil. But his mother thought it appropriate to also give him her curses books so that her son would know what to expect. Severus was in perfect agreement. After all, what better way to defend yourself against dark magic than to know how to control it? In fact, maybe the same thing applied to everything else in life. He thought about this for a long time sitting at his desk and looking through the glass at the drops of rain that were hitting his window. If he could have controlled the rain, just as he had controlled the school of fish, then he might still have been with Lily, playing around the creek.