It was an unassuming home. Small, painted tan, kept quite clean despite its shabbiness. The occupants had moved in eighteen years before and a son had been born a little after that. The boy never played in the yard and was away at school for ten months out of the year. The husband drove a black car to work every day and seemed to drink away most of his pay. The wife was the resident that was seen the most. She had a garden around the back of the kitchen that she tended to. It was the most beautiful garden in the neighborhood, magically surviving all the nasty weather that killed all other plants. They kept to themselves for the most part and neighbors respected that. Besides, no body really wanted to get involved in it. There was something strange about the place, even past the fact that loud fights could be heard coming from the small cottage at least twice a week.

All had been quiet in the Snape house that evening, up until 9:22. Severus knew the exact time because he was doing his best to focus on the clock on the wall rather than the fight before him. If you could call it a fight; it was more like a one-sided massacre. The clock let out a single chime as it struck half nine. Thirteen and a half hours until I'm on the Hogwarts Express, Severus told himself.

With an almighty crack Tobias Snape backhanded his wife Eileen so hard she spit blood as she fell to the dingy white carpet. Severus could no longer ignore this abuse as his mother's blood sprinkled down on his pale, folded hands. "Dad!" he shouted, standing. He was nothing impressive, unlike his thick stocky father. At seventeen he was still skinny and pallid, a wimp by even his own standards. Nevertheless, he called out, "Dad, please stop, you're hurting her!"
"Well I wouldn't be if she didn't keep using that hocus-pocus! She'll learn," Tobias said calmly as he reached over and yanked Eileen up by the collar of her blue dress.

Severus lunged forward and kicked his father's arm away. "Stop!" He would have already crucio'd his father into madness but the thought of being expelled from Hogwarts and sent to Azkaban was too much to bear. Hogwarts was his sanctuary.

Tobias straightened and met his son's eyes. "It's your fault. It is always your fault, son. She would not have used it if your vile concoction had not boiled over. Isn't that right, Eileen?"

Eileen nodded fearfully from the floor. Tobias turned his psychotic grin on Severus and advanced on him. His hand raised and Severus closed his eyes. The next thing he knew he was falling and with a loud sound of wood splintering, he lost consciousness. Tobias turned to Eileen. She looked up at him with wide eyes and scooted herself back a bit. He looked from where Severus had fallen through the flimsy coffee table back to his wife and knelt down to meet her eyes. He held his hand out, palm up, in a gesture of peace.

"I'm sorry," he told her. She glanced at her son's still body and choked back tears. Nodding she took his hand and he led her to their room.

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Severus awoke early the next morning, still lying in the coffee table remains. His head pounding in the front and back, a swollen cut from his father and a lump from the table. His parents were nowhere to be seen. He stood quietly and walked to his room. It was bare; all his personal belongings were packed away in his trunk, ready to go to Hogwarts. He crossed to the trunk and opened it, taking the clothes he had left folded on top. After changing quickly in the moldy, gray bathroom he brushed his teeth and hair.

He decided he would take a taxi to London, so he walked down the hall towards the kitchen and the phone. As he passed, dragging his trunk quietly, he peeked into his parents' room. His father had slung and arm around his mother in what would normally be considered a sweet gestured, but Severus knew better. He saw the possessiveness behind the action. Giving his mother a pitying look, he shut their door so that they would not hear him leave. In the kitchen he called for a car and sat down to wait. He thought about eating but then finally noticed the sickened feeling his headaches were causing.

The clock chimed half seven just before Severus heard a car horn beckon him from outside. His stomach pitched with the thought of his father waking so he grabbed his trunk and hurried outside. The driver stood, ready to assist in the loading of luggage, at the back of the sleek, next to dark car with the open trunk.

He jumped in surprise when he saw Severus. "What happened to you, mate?"

"That," Severus said, "would be none of your business. The three-hour car ride passed entirely in silence, Severus holding his throbbing head in his hands. Upon arrival at King's Cross Station, Severus paid the driver quickly and ran inside. He entered the barrier just as the warning whistle blew."Severus, come on!" a blonde-haired girl hung her head out of a compartment window. At the sight of her he grinned and rushed onto the nearest car. The final whistle blew and he stepped into the hall where she was standing at the other end. Over the dull roar of parents and students yelling good-bye he heard her shout, "Hi!"

He yanked his trunk a little more quickly and finally stood before her. Narcissa Black gasped as she looked at his face. "Severus… again?"

Severus looked away and nodded. The compartment door behind Narcissa slid open and a dark-skinned girl stuck her head out. "Are you coming back, Cissy?"

"Later," Narcissa responded, not taking her eyes off the bloody lump on Severus' forehead, which had turned purple since he had awoken. The girl shrugged and ducked back into the Slytherin seventh years' compartment. Narcissa took Severus' free hand and led him to the next free compartment. There he finally hefted his trunk and put it away. He collapsed in the window seat and Narcissa sat next to him. She lifted her hands to his head and brushed off the dried blood.

"Back off, Narcissa," he said, pushing her hand away with his shoulder.

"But you're all cut up. Would you just let me take a look?"

"It'll heal."

Ignoring his dry statement she bent around his face to look at the abrasion. Before he could stop her she jabbed her wand at the cut and said, "Episkey!"

"Gah! You could have poked my eye out. You just can't spring a wooden stick in a man's face like that!"

Narcissa giggled, but tenderly raised a hand to his head and felt it. Everything had healed well and now a small, shiny scar glinted below his hairline. "Is that all?" she said. He obligingly turned to show her the back and she healed his second wound. They settled back onto the seat, each at opposite ends. Narcissa stretched her legs out on the empty seat and asked, "Is your mum ok?"

Severus grunted, "I guess so."

"You didn't check?"

"No."

Narcissa frowned and cast around for a new subject. "How was your summer, Severus?"

He took his eyes off the window through which he had previously been glaring and looked back at her. "It was alright," he said stiltedly. When he noticed the frown on her face he added, with a considerably more cheerful voice, "And yours?"

"Lovely. Well…except for all the parties I had to go to. They would have been so much fun, I got new robes for each one, but every single one Mum kept pushing me towards Lucius Malfoy. You know him, right? Well he's six years older than us…a bit of a prat in my opinion. All he talks about is his wonderful Quidditch brooms. I despise Quidditch. If I never hear the word 'Quidditch' come out of his mouth again, it will be too soon!"

"Quidditch is a vile sport," Severus said nodding sagely.

Narcissa nodded and a silence fell, during which Severus pulled out his secondhand transfiguration book from his bag. He began reading it, disgusted at the frayed edges. His father had refused to pay for new books for him.

Soon the anger at his father's cheap neglect filled his thoughts and he could see him sneering as he lifted the magical studies books and insulted their age. Tobias had lifted the Advanced Potion-Making book, it had been the only book Severus had splurged on and bought new since his old copy was reduced to cinders in a cauldron accident, and rifled roughly through the crisp pages. When he reached the back cover his sneer grew and he looked at Severus. "Half-blood prince?" he said, "how pathetic."

Reliving the memory on the train Severus forgot himself for a moment and did just as he had wanted to do as his father had stood before him, laughing at him. Severus let out a wounded yell and threw the heavy tome that was in his hands. It hit the seat opposite, its cover fell off and Narcissa yelped and curled up against the wall.

Severus looked at the book and cranked his head back to see Narcissa scared and cowering. "I-I don't know what that was…"

Holding her hands out in front of her in a peaceful stance Narcissa quietly said, "Maybe the bumps on your head addled you a bit, caused muscle reactions, like throwing or yelling. It happens sometimes."

Severus did not want to agree that his head was addled but one look at her scared face told him it would be best to assure her that was all it was. "Yea, I'm sure that's it."

"I'll take you to the hospital wing as soon as we get there-"

"I won't get lost, I can go myself."

"Yes, but I wanted to stay with you."

Severus considered her meaningful stare. "All right," he said, and then grudgingly added, "Thank you."

She nodded and stretched back out again with her own book, watching him warily from under her eyelashes all the way to Hogwarts.

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

After having his head completely checked out and filling his stomach with whipped chocolate pudding, Severus lay in his bed, gazing up at the deep green canopy that looked black in the absence of light. He stretched and sighed, willing himself to go to sleep. The nurse in the hospital wing had said his head was completely fine, nothing addled at all. "Ms. Black," the nurse had said, "Where did you learn this spell? So finely done for a girl in her first day of seventh year."

Still, something was bothering him.

Flashes of the previous evening kept popping up in his mind. He could not help but feel a bit guilty. It was his potion that had spilled and his mother had kindly vanished it for him. Too bad his father had caught her with her wand out. He should have waited that morning to find out if she was okay, but it was too late to do that.

Yet, something else still nagged at him.

Narcissa. She had seen him let rage take over. She, his only true friend, the only one that knew about his father, was the one that he had scared. He knew that she would never forget his outburst on the train. That scared him more than what he had done.

He closed his eyes again, praying that Narcissa would never see that again. He could not bear to let her be scared of him, like he and his mother were scared of his father. He sighed again, trying to let his mind drift away from it all.

Think about tomorrow, he told himself. He did not have his schedule yet, but he knew the classes he'd be taking: Transfiguration, Charms, Arithmancy, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology and Potions. He smiled to himself at the thought of Potions class…with Lily Evans.