The first day back at school after his first summer holiday was disastrous. It was cold and rainy and there were welts forming on his hands because he had still not improved on his handwriting.

It was safe to say that be was glad to find the house empty when he came home, with both his parents off at work like usual.

He climbed up the stairs to his bedroom. His knee was hurting a lot, some of his classmates had actually attacked him during break now. It was getting worse and worse, as the others were growing older and thus better at knowing how to hurt him.

The attacks, the insults. He couldn't take it anymore. He had nowhere left to go. At home things weren't good either. Well, that was an understatement. It was hard to distinguish the bruises he got from his classmates at school from those his father had given him during the holidays.

He lay on his bed, trying to figure out how to make it stop. He had to make it stop. He remembered what his mother had told him. He had to show them they shouldn't mess with him.

That's when he got it. He knew what he could do to make it stop. He could do magic – he had done it before. He had stopped his father from hurting him before. If he could do it then, he could do it now. After all, he was older and wiser now.

Yes, his mother always told him not to use it, that it was bad and not suitable in this town, and that he would learn it when he was 11 and off to Hogwarts, but that would take so long! He was only 6 and couldn't wait to learn it. It could help him out greatly with his issue at school.

Determined to finally put an end to all this nonsense he climbed up to the attic, where the mountains of books still lay, covered by a thick layer of dust.

It was exactly how he remembered it.

Severus suppressed a cough, and looked around the attic. It seemed to have shrunken from when he was here last time – or maybe he had just grown a lot. He could barely stand anymore.

He could read the titles of some of the books. "Curses and Counter-Curses" he muttered, reading the title of a large book, bound in red and gold leather. He pulled it closer to him and opened it, curious to see what was discussed in it.

"Chapter One" he read, "The Dark Arts." He skimmed the rest of the page. There were no pictures. He took a deep breath and started to decipher the rest of the words on the page. He had only just learnt how to read and the book wasn't exactly meant for six-year-olds, that much he could tell.

"The Dark Arts are often misun-ders-tood. The Dark Arts are often mi-sun-derst-ood?" He didn't know. This was a hard book. He closed it. Maybe there was an easier book to find.

He spotted a smaller book laying to his left. It was brown and was decorated with beautiful curls. "Basic Hex-es for the Busy and Ve- Vex-ed?" He read the title. 'Basic' seemed what he needed, but what did 'vexed' even mean? Still, he opened the book, and scanned the subjects.

Maybe he could use this? "Horn tongue hex" Did that do what he thought it would? He had to stifle a laugh as he imagined Jones' tongue becoming a horn. That would be hilarious.

'Instant scalping hex' apparently removed all the hair? This book was genius.

He skimmed the rest of the book and decided on a hair loss curse. It wasn't permanent, and he didn't want to hurt him too badly or he would get into trouble.

The next morning he sneaked the book and his mother's wand with him to school. During break he hid himself behind the school and reread the part on how to do it. 'Calvorio' was the incantation. He practised the incantation and the wand movement before he put the book back in his bag and started to look for Jones. This was going to work.

He spotted Jones playing tag with some of the other children. He took his mother's wand and pointed it at Jones, but he kept moving. How was he supposed to hit him if Jones didn't stand still? It was near impossible for him to aim right. But he still tried. Jones stood still for a second, and he fired. "Calvorio!" he half-whispered.

He couldn't see if he'd aimed right. He'd certainly tried. He kept an eye on Jones but he still had all his hair. It didn't look like he'd hit him. Had he hit anyone else? Or had it simply not worked?

"AARGH!!" he heard someone scream.

"What's happening?!" a crowd was gathering around the scream.

Severus quickly hid his mother's wand and the book back in his bag and flung it over his shoulders before running to the group. He had to see what was going on.

He managed to push through the layers of laughing and shocked children and saw what was at the centre. A girl, a few years older than him, was covering her head with her arms. It was bald. She was bald. Severus had to stifle a laugh, it did look pretty weird. And his spell had worked!

"'Tuney?!" he heard someone call out. He turned to see a red-haired girl running towards the girl his spell had hit.

"'Tuney!" she roughly pushed Severus aside, and he fell into the other children, looking at her rush to the girl apparently called 'Tuney'.

Teachers were called to the scene, and everyone was freaking out. The girl was taken to the hospital to find out what the cause was of this sudden loss of hair.

Severus knew that they wouldn't find anything, but he wasn't going to tell them that, was he? They were all Muggles, incapable of doing magic, and prone to locking away and killing all they saw that wasn't mundane.

The rest of the day everyone was too shaken to do anything, and when he got home there was no-one, so he could put back the book and the wand without anyone noticing.

That night when he lay in bed he started to overthink today's events. He'd done magic. Actual magic. With a wand and all that. Okay, he missed his target, but it had worked.

Maybe if he practised more, he would become very good at it. Good enough to stop his classmates from bullying him.

And so he decided he would spend every moment he could in the attic to read through the books and practise the spells, so that when he got to Hogwarts, he would be at the top of his class.

In the meantime, to deal with the bullies until he could stop them with magic, Severus had come up with a newish technique of not caring, or at least pretending to not care. Every time they made a comment on how he looked, or his clothes, he would just brush it off.

It were stupid Muggles, he had remembered, they couldn't help being awful – it was in their nature. That's what kept him going. They were mean because they were Muggles, and he was a wizard. He was better than they would ever be.

And so, Severus' life became a lot more durable than before. Until Friday 3 February 1967 – the day his father had been sacked.

Being the Muggle his father was, he, of course, escaped to the consoles of alcohol at the local pub. And they gladly let him.

But today was the third time in a row he hadn't come home. His mother had started to worry. Severus was fine without him, but she insisted they search the town.

So he was walking along his mother over the cobblestones. They passed the pub but it was closed. They asked other people who they knew had been colleagues of his father's. No-one knew where he was.

The search lasted until deep in the night before they returned home.

When his mother closed the door behind them, someone said: "Where've you been?" He and his mother nearly jumped from fright when they saw the shadow of a man, and this fright doubled when they realised it was Severus' father – Tobias.

"Toby –"

"I didn't say you could speak!" his father shouted.

"Go upstairs," his mother told him, trying to shove him in the direction of the stairs.

"The boy goes nowhere," his father said. Severus looked at his mother. They should never have left to search for him. They were fine without him!

"Now, what're you doing outside at three o'clock?" his father asked.

"We were looking for you," his mother responded.

"DON'T LIE!"

"I'm not lying, Tobias, we were!"

"I'm not an IDIOT, woman, I can SEE your wand!"

"That's nothing –"

"LIES. You were teaching the boy magic, weren't you?"

Severus' mother looked at Severus, clearly afraid. She had taken the wand for protection, out of old habit. Not to use it.

"I'm sorry, Severus," she whispered.

"Ah, you confess, don't you, witch?!"

"Tobias, it's not what you think –" she tried.

But Severus' father started to walk toward his wife and took her wand away, tossing it in a corner of the room, much to Severus' relief, who had been sure his father would break it. And then, gone was his magic practice.

"We said, no magic," he spat in her face.

They argued for a long time, and Severus had sunken to the floor, unable to keep in his tears as he watched them argue, afraid of the moment his father got violent, and moved onto him...