Money was getting increasingly tight in the Snape household. The Mill was doing bad business, and had cut the salary of the workers several times. It had gotten so bad that Eileen was forced to pick up a job as well, and she became a cleaning lady at the nearby hotel for a few hours per day.

Severus was only four years old, but there was no money for a babysitter and after the incident a few years prior, they didn't have any friends, and were regarded as strange, creepy, people. And so it came to be that the young Severus was left home alone.

Eileen didn't mind this too much, for she was especially worried about the young boy accidentally exposing the magical world to outsiders if he were to be left in someone else's care.

She had witnessed him and his magical development, and she knew he would grow up to do brilliant things. The amount of control he had over his magic at this age was incredible, and she knew that, with the right training, he would become one of the greatest wizards of their time.

She wished she could teach him some of the basics before he were to leave for Hogwarts, but she knew she couldn't. It was too dangerous, here in this Muggle town. And Tobias would never allow it. No, the boy would have to wait until he got to Hogwarts where he could enjoy the best magical education a child could get.

Today was the first time he would be left home alone. Eileen had prepared everything for today. She had even made him some food so he could have something to eat while she was gone. It would only be three hours anyway. The kid would be fine.

She woke him up right before she had to go. Tobias had left a few hours before.

"I've got some food for you on the table, don't forget to use the potty when you have to go, and… I guess that's about it. I'll be back in a few hours. Bye."

Severus slowly woke up, barely registering his mother's words and by the time he sat up in bed, she was long gone. He slowly but carefully got out of bed, and left his bedroom.

Anxiously, he watched the stairs. He had to go down there. So many steps to go down. But he was a big boy now. He was four. He could conquer these steps.

He took a deep breath and set a shaky foot on the upper step. His other foot next to it. So far, it was going great.

He braced himself for the second step, feeling more confident every second. As he reached the bottom, he beamed with pride.

He went into the living room. It looked so strange with nobody in it. It was empty and scary.

He went up to the table in the corner of the room and reached out to get the food. He curled up on the couch and ate the bread.

He then, curious as he was, decided it was a good moment to start exploring places in the house he had never been able to go to before. He knew they had a second floor — there was a flight of stairs going up — but he had no idea what was up there. Time to figure out why it had always been off limits for him.

After managing through both staircases without tripping and falling down, something he took great pride in, he reached a small crawling space and saw it was packed with books, with layers of dust on them. They had obviously not been used in several years.

Severus picked up the first book he saw. There were weird shapes on the cover.

He flipped though the book until he saw a picture. Good books contained pictures. He couldn't read, so pictures weren't only the indication of good books, but also of useful ones.

Ah! A picture. He leaned closer to the book and traced the picture with his finger. It was some sort of step-by-step plan of how to do something… there was a stick and swirls and it was all very fanciful. He remembered the many stories his mother had told him. About magic, and wands, and he wondered if the stick was a wand.

Was it a magic book? Was this how people learnt magic? By reading these books? By watching those pictures and… repeating them? Was it really as simple as that? His mother had made it sound much more complicated.

This would mean he could do magic too? Now? If he just followed the steps? That was how it worked? Really?

He looked around the room. If only there was a stick — a wand — here. Because he didn't have any himself.

But the room seemed to just be packed with stacks of books and other stuff like a… dress? And a hat and other things of no use to him learning magic right now.

He crawled around until he spotted it. A wand. He grasped it and it felt warm in his hand, which was strange in the cold attic.

He looked back at the book and tried to replicate the movement drawn in the book with the wand. Nothing happened. Why didn't anything happen? Had he done something wrong? Maybe he wasn't old enough after all. His mother had said something about being 11, and he was only 4.

He tried again a few times but he couldn't get a result. So he threw the wand against the wall when it failed a fifth time, losing interest.

Sparks erupted from the tip of the wand when it made contact with the wall. He crawled back to the wand and picked it up again. Did it just produce magic? It made lights! Could it make lights again? Could he light up the tip? He shook the wand slightly.

"Light up!" he told it desperately. He needed it to light up. He needed to do magic. He just needed it.

He said it a few times and then something truly magical happened. Literally. The tip lit up, and the room became bright, filled with light.

He had done it! Magic! He had done real magic!

He was overjoyed, but his joy quickly got killed as he heard the front door shut closed harshly. In his fright, he wasn't supposed to be up here, after all, he dropped the wand. It was still lit.

Eileen had returned home from her first day of work, and she was quite exhausted. She had never really had to work in her life before, other than in the house, and cleaning wasn't exactly her hobby, either.

Severus made his way down the stairs to his own bedroom. He closed the door to his room just as he heard footsteps come up. His mother's footsteps. And she would be none the wiser.

Eileen was going up to see how Severus was doing. She was quite curious about how he had spent these few hours. As she was going up the stairs, she heard a door close. She walked up faster and opened the door to his bedroom to find a very triumphant looking boy.

Severus was half celebrating what he had done today. Because he had made it – his mother didn't know about him doing magic, and he had done MAGIC.

He was smiling as his mother opened the door. She looked suspiciously at him, but neither of them said anything of it.

The rest of the day went smoothly, although Eileen couldn't shake the feeling that Severus had been up to some things he shouldn't have.

The following day, Severus sat in his room, thinking about what to do with this free time he had.

He could sneak back up to the wand, he reasoned. And do what, a voice in his mind asked. He didn't know how to read, and there were barely any pictures in the books. What use would it be?

He was debating whether or not it would be worth the scary climb up the stairs when it hadn't worked yesterday.

But it had. It had sparkled and a light had come from the wand when he had wanted it to.

So that was decided. He would go up. Confident with his decision he climbed up the stairs to the attic and put his hand on the doorknob. He tried to open the door but it wouldn't budge. Was it stuck or locked? It hadn't been locked yesterday. Had his mum found out about the magic after all?

"Severus Snape," a voice came from behind. A familiar voice. His mother's voice. "What do you think you're doing?" She asked. She had gone up here after her son and husband had gone to sleep, and found her wand lit and books opened.

"I –" Severus tried.

"You were after this – she pulled out her wand – weren't you?" Severus let his eyes wander. Anywhere would be better than looking at his mother. This already answered her question. Part of her was proud of him for getting it to light up yesterday, but it was also very dangerous. He shouldn't be doing magic in this town.

"Well? You can't ignore me forever."

Severus looked down and muttered a barely audible 'yes', but his mother had heard him.

"Go to your room," she told him.

"You - how —"

"Go. Now."

Severus did as she'd asked, climbing down the stairs to the first floor, his mother following after him. It wasn't fair. Why was his mother even at home? Why did she catch him — how did she catch him?

And most importantly – why was she mad? Hadn't she been the one to talk to him about magic, and what it was, and that he had to study it to control it and to be good at it? Wasn't that exactly what he had done? All he did was try to learn how to do magic. That was all he did. And that was wrong. Everything he did around here was wrong.

Even learning was punishable here. At least it had been his mother who caught him...

He knew they didn't like him. Especially his father. He just didn't know why. He had been a good son, hadn't he? OK, maybe he didn't always listen to what they said, and maybe he wasn't always on his best behaviour, but that wasn't bad, was it?

His father was never on his best behaviour and he didn't get punished for that. Why was he any different? Just because he was young? He wasn't even that young, he had just turned four! He wasn't a baby. Not anymore.

His mother had locked his room after he had gone in.

"I'm unlocking it when I get home. If I can't trust you, it'll have to be like this." Eileen hated that this was necessary, but she just couldn't risk it.

Severus heard his mother go downstairs and leave the house, the front door slamming shut.

And the young Severus was all alone again.