1971-1972 - Christmas
The loud sound of a horn echoed through the station as the Hogwarts Express came to a halt. Hundreds of children started pouring from the train, rushing to greet their parents. Lily Evans was doing the same, having just wished her friend an early 'Merry Christmas' and a 'Happy New Year'. It was a tradition in her family that they spend the holidays in Sheffield with some more distant relatives.
That left the little first-year Slytherin standing alone on the platform. He scanned the crowd with his eyes. A part of him still hoped he'd see a thin woman with black hair somewhere among the dozens of cheerful, reunited families.
A feeling of jealousy settled in his chest as he watched Lily hug her parents and sister. Her parents hugged her back. Her sister did not. That feeling was replaced with bitterness, when he moved his gaze to their left and saw Fleamont Potter pat his son on the back and beam at him.
And it was with a heavy heart and a heavy sigh that he queued up in front of the barrier to Muggle London.
The trip to Manchester was uneventful. Seuthes had found a seat in a near-empty compartment. The only other person there had been an old Scotsman, who spent the entire time reading a newspaper. He must have only been pretending to do so for the better part of that time, though, because there was no way he could spend more than three hours reading what was, at best, only about 40 pages.
But there was, in fact, a problem. Not one that had been exactly unexpected, but a problem nonetheless. The train ticket had left the brothers with no more than a pound, and they still had an hour ride home by bus. And let's not forget, it was now a little after 10 PM.
Seuthes grabbed the trunk and pulled it inside of a bathroom in the station under the judging gaze of an old woman having a smoke in front of it. He locked the door, and was about to ask if Russ had any ideas on what they should do, when he thought of a problem.
Yet another problem. How was he to ask him, when to get in the trunk you needed to first unlock the second compartment, and that required a spell? And spells were not something Seuthes was allowed to do.
Now overwhelmed with frustration, he grabbed a hold of the magical object and dragged it out of the station. He was sure there was a magical shopping street, where a bit of magic would go undetected, somewhere in Manchester, but how was he supposed to find it, for fuck's sake! The only thing he knew about it was that the Muggles were planning to build a shopping centre next to it, whatever that was supposed to mean (That was before they changed the entrance, though, so don't go looking for it. The Muggles would think you're a weirdo). And he didn't know where this centre was either.
He must have wandered the streets for at least an hour, only to find it was not even a mile away from the train station. Unfortunately, finding the to-be-Manchester-Arndale-Centre was not what he actually wanted to do. It was only the first step of finding the wizarding shopping street.. And so, he set on looking for open pubs and shops, repeating "Hogwarts" to every person he met there.
"What's got into you, kid?"
"...Yeah, some brassic boy asking about hog warts..."
"Ain't nobody looking for you?"
These and a few rude remarks were the responses he got by doing that, but it was all worth it, when an elderly man pulled him to the side by his elbow and whispered: "What d'you mean 'Hogwarts'?"
"D'you know the school, sir?"
"Yes, I know the school! What d'you think you're doing prattling to muggles like that?" The man was wearing a frown — a mix of confusion and disapproval. He pulled Seuthes further into the inn and in some room filled with empty boxes, then closed the door and placed a Privacy Spell on it.
"I was hoping someone would tell me how to get to the High Street- not the Muggle one," the boy hastened to add.
"And pray tell, where are your parents?" The elder wizard was now looking at the younger one calculatingly, as though expecting him to try to rob him any second now.
For a moment Seuthes thought of telling the truth, but that notion was quickly dismissed. It would raise too many questions. "Mother's waiting for me near the entrance," he said instead.
He tried to sell his lie by looking straight into the man's eyes. And it was a mistake. He felt a presence, a tugging at his conscious. And then an image flashed of Slughorn giving one of his praises to Rabastan Lestrange. Another followed — Russ sitting with Lily under their tree. His father's shouts ringing through the closed door. His mother's letter. Potter. Black. McGonagall. He was eight and covering his black eye with a shaky hand, when his father appeared around a corner, more angry than he'd ever seen him.
And then the presence was gone, leaving behind only a splitting headache. Seuthes clutched at his temples and staggered back.
"You felt that?" said the man in front of him, both his eyebrows raised. When the boy only glared at him, he muttered, "Bollocks, I must be losing my touch, then."
"I'm not a fool, you know."
But he was. And he knew it. He'd just let that stranger inside his head and hadn't done a thing to stop him. It was sheer luck that he'd managed to keep the twin part a secret. Good luck. Hell must be freezing over.
"All right, follow me, then."
And the man marched through the door and down the corridor, until he reached a back door. Seuthes followed. He didn't know why, it wasn't as though the elder wizard had done a particularly good job at winning his trust. But he followed regardless. He followed, and stopped only when the other pointed at an overflowing bin.
"You step inside and say: 'Shado Way'."
"What? Why?"
The stranger raised one eyebrow and smirked. "Weren't you saying you're not a fool just a moment ago?"
Shado Way was dark. Well, yes, it was quite late at night, but the street was darker than Muggle Manchester still. The only indication that it wasn't just some abandoned place were the loud voices coming from a few restaurants down the street.
Even in the darkness, it was easy to spot the differences between this street and Diagon Alley. This one was wider, the buildings were taller. A big part of the sky was covered by balconies and awnings, but the dozens of candles and lanterns, that were floating in the air, suggested it could be quite bright in here if they were lit.
Seuthes was still looking around, when the other wizard stepped into his line of sight.
"Well now, kido, what are you really doing here."
Yes, he'd thought his lie wasn't too convincing. Nothing illegal, rest assured. But a voice in his head supplied that it was, in fact, illegal. "Nothing harmful."
The wizard sighed and gestured for Seuthes to come closer. Then threw a hand over his shoulders and nodded toward his trunk. "And Merlin's sweaty singlet, why is this thing twice your size!" And then they were spinning, and everything went black. And he felt as though he was trying to go through a straw. Something was pushing him from all sides. And then he knew — they were apparating.
He recognized the place instantly. Well, as soon as his vision cleared a bit and he picked himself from the ground, anyway. It was the street that connected Spinner's End with the bridge, the one that stranger had seen in the last memory.
"All right, lead the way."
But Seuthes didn't move. Too stunned was he to do anything but stare, even if he wished to. And he didn't. What reason did this stranger have to help him? It was unsettling. And he said as much.
"Think of it as a Christmas gift," the elder wizard shrugged.
Later, the boy would find it hard to remember exactly what had transpired after that. It was fine with him; he only wished he could forget everything that had happened after he got home as well.
Tobias wasn't too happy to see his son standing there in the door frame, and was even less pleased with his unexpected companion. Thankfully, the wizard disapparated before Tobias could voice his displeasure.
Dread filled Seuthes as he watched his father advance toward him. A sharp pain exploded in his shoulder, when the man pulled his arm to push him inside the living room.
"What d'you think you're doing coming here this late?" Tobias hissed. He then looked at his son down his hooked nose, and sneered, "Lost your way, have you? That thick head of yours couldn't even remember where you live."
Seuthes stared back in shock. He didn't know what he had expected coming home, but such a cold greeting hadn't been on the list. The look he was giving his father turned from shock to defiance. If they'd wanted him home before midnight, they could've taken him from the station. He'd been set back less than an hour by not taking the bus, so Tobias couldn't have been expecting him much earlier.
"Such warm welcoming," he bit back. And instantly regretted it, when he felt a hand grab his collar.
His father's face was not even three inches away from his own now. He could sense the smell of alcohol in the man's breath.
"What did you say?" Tobias rasped through gritted teeth.
It was the adrenaline in his system, Seuthes was sure, that prompted him to act this foolishly. Like a true Gryffindor, he'd later chastise himself. He could see his father's red face vibrating from rage, bloodshot eyes boring a hole through his skull. And yet, he'd decided to speak. To make matters even worse than they already were.
"Simply admiring your parenting skills, Father."
He saw, more than he felt, the back of his father's hand landing on the right side of his face. That was until he heard a whimper coming from somewhere behind him, and it registered that he'd just been hit for the first time in more than a year. Suddenly, it wasn't so painless anymore. His cheek was stinging now, just like his eyes, filled with unbidden tears. Seuthes quickly blinked them back before Tobias could see this display of weakness. His father shoved him to the ground, delivered a lazy kick to his ribs for good measure, and stomped to the couch, where he collapsed with a grunt.
Seuthes wasn't sure how long he lay there, sobbing on the floor. At some point he felt a gentle hand touch his head and let himself be guided to his room. It wasn't long before he drifted off to sleep.
This Christmas must be the worst in a string of awful Christmases, Severus decided. They hadn't even gathered around the table this time. His father was once again sleeping on the couch. He seemed to only get up for his daily dose of shouting and then go right back to sleep. His mother was just... drawing weird patterns without any real meaning behind them. Severus supposed it was her way of escaping reality. His grandmother was once again not invited. It was for the better, Severus wasn't sure he'd be able to hold a conversation with anyone right now, and Elvyra Prince always had something to talk about. And his brother... Sev was upstairs, lying in bed and doing nothing but muttering colourful insults directed at his parents.
It was a good thing Tobias was in such a state that he couldn't climb the stairs. As for Eileen, Severus was sure she'd heard some of the words Sev had used to describe her. He didn't know if it had affected her, but he supposed it must have. Something was not right with her. She hadn't done a thing to stop Tobias' actions the night Sev had arrived. And then she hadn't treated him, she'd just helped him get to his bed and left him there. And she wasn't talking. She spoke if you addressed her directly, but it was only in one-syllables. She seemed just so... detached from everything that was happening around her.
"Mother," Severus called with a glance at his father's sleeping form. He had to repeat the word two more times for her to finally lift her head from the page she was currently scribbling on. "Can we talk?"
At her nod, he moved closer to the armchair she was sat in.
"What's wrong?" asked Severus. His mother raised an eyebrow. But the gesture was weak, a ghost of the expressiveness he was used to seeing from her. "You are not okay," he explained, though that was obvious even to a toddler. "Has something happened?"
"No."
"Is it Father? Has he... Has he done something? To you?"
His mother now looked irritated. "Not everything is your father's fault, Severus."
Progress. She'd formed a full sentence, even if one that didn't answer his question.
"Then what is it?" But he was already pretty sure this was his father's fault. When his mother didn't respond, Severus tried a different topic. "Sev doesn't mean it. What he says about you, I mean."
A heavy silence filled the room. And just as Severus could take it no more, his mother spoke again. "He is right. I should have protected him."
Her son gaped at her. "No. You shouldn't have, and he knows it. You should protect yourself; you've done enough for us."
Eileen didn't reply. She was scribbling again, without looking at what she was doing. Her eyes were unfocused and staring straight in front of her. Severus wasn't sure she'd even heard him.
He got up from the armrest of the couch and, with one last look at his mother, retreated up the stairs. Sev was sitting in their bed with his head rested against the wall, reading the Charms schoolbook.
"You should apologize to her," said Severus from the door.
Sev didn't look up. "I should," he replied. And Severus knew he would. He knew the reason his brother was angry at their mother was not that she hadn't put herself in harm's way, and neither was it that she hadn't healed him after the fact (though the latter still confused both twins). He was angry at her because he could see she was not fighting. He could see she had resigned herself to whatever her husband and everyone else did to her. He could see she had given up. And he couldn't understand why.
On December 27th Seuthes stepped into the living room for the first time since he'd got home. He'd wanted to ignore everyone, and it had worked quite well thus far. But now he was hungry, and Russ hadn't brought anything to eat since yesterday. He hadn't realized until now how much he missed the regular meals at Hogwarts, or the existence of a bathroom, where he could take an actual shower. At home, he'd always had to rely on the water from the sink, and he tried to make those 'showers' as short as possible. They were just... so cold. He was unfortunate enough it was easy to get used to luxury, but that the other way around presented a challenge.
His father was 'out' as Russ had said, which Seuthes took to mean he was in the pub with his 'mates'. His mother was sitting on her armchair. She was knitting something. Which was weird because he'd never known she could. He passed her without a word, and entered the kitchen. His stomach grumbled in disappointment, when he realized the only food they had was some bread and a bag of raw rice.
A buttered slice of bread later, he emerged from the kitchen, and took a seat on the sagged sofa. He hissed almost inaudibly, when he felt a sharp pain in his chest. His ribs would remind him daily of how much he'd come to detest his father. There was a constant feeling of wanting to cough and being unable to because of the pain that would cause him, which only served to irritate him further.
"Am sorry," Seuthes blurted out some time later. He'd been sitting there, looking for a good way to say it, but it had escaped his lips without his consent before he'd thought it through.
He looked up at his mother then, waiting uncomfortably to see her reaction. She didn't react at first. He was beginning to worry she hadn't heard him at all, or worse — was going to ignore him. But then she met his gaze, and there was this intensity in it, the one you would always find in her eyes, when she meant for her message to be heard and remembered. And it hit him then, that his mother was still somewhere in there, wrapped in this blanket of indifference she'd been presenting to the world since he'd come home.
"I am sorry, too."
In a manner remarkably similar to the way his brother had done two days prior, Seuthes gaped at her. "Whatever for?"
"I let your father hurt you."
The boy schooled his features in an attempt to keep his anger at bay, and replied, "That is something he should be apologizing for, not you."
Yes, his father should apologize to him, Russ, and most definitely to their mother. However, that apology was neither wanted, nor received. Which was just as well. The man had dropped his pretences to care at last.
Still, the problem remained — something was very wrong with Eileen Snape; and Seuthes highly suspected it was a result of Tobias' imprisonment. The man was worse than he'd been last year. And his wife was doing nothing to stop him. Russ had to physically drag her away from the living room that evening, before his father returned. He had done so on other occasions, but previously it had been because she'd been trying to protect her children. And now it was because... because she didn't care enough to protect herself.
On January 1st, Tobias gathered his family around the table. For once, he was not angry or drunk. He must have missed the fact that that was a rare occurrence because the whole time he was trying to start a conversation as though it was nothing out of the ordinary, and was constantly cracking dumb jokes. Jokes that provoked only nervous laughter, the type of laughter you'd hear when no-one actually wants to laugh.
On January 2nd, the man was back to his normal self. That resulted in Severus having a split lip and Seuthes seething about life in general. The brothers had both spent some more time with their mother in those last few days. At least she seemed to be doing a little better.
On January 3rd, they took the bus to Manchester at the crack of dawn. Around 7 o'clock, Severus entered a luggage compartment in the train to London, and carefully placed his trunk on the ground. This time he'd been foresighted enough not to lock the magical room, and was therefore able to get inside it along with his brother. He thought himself quite ingenious for that idea. He didn't have money for a ticket, but he wouldn't need a ticket if no-one knew he was there, right?
Around a quarter to eleven, Severus entered the Hogwarts Express. He deliberately tried to avoid Lily and consequently a confrontation about his lip. He managed to do so, but was not so lucky as to avoid Potter, who chose exactly the moment Severus was passing by his compartment to step out into the corridor. The boy looked him up and down, but surprisingly, decided not to comment on both said lip and his clothing. He just stepped aside and let the Slytherin pass.
Almost immediately, Severus found a compartment with a lone second-year Hufflepuff, and slipped inside. He changed to his school robes as quickly as possible, and sat next to the window just in time to see the train begin to move. At some point, Lily came looking for him, but he hid his head with a part of his robe, and pretended to be asleep. Thankfully, the Hufflepuff had no idea who Severus Snape was.
One of the very few things everyone at Hogwarts agreed on was that one could always rely on Madam Pomfrey to patch them up when they needed patching up. So much so, that she would try to patch some people up even when it wasn't necessarily needed. She was just checking her potions supply, when the familiar creak of the door sounded from the infirmary.
The matron turned just in time to see a disheveled nest of black hair appear in the room, two black eyes scanning it before resting on its only occupant - the matron herself. True to her reputation, she was quick to notice the split lip Snape sported, but the boy spoke before she could say anything about it.
"Excuse me, ma'am. I was wondering if I could get a Deflating Draught and a Skele-Gro. I'm doing personal research for Potions."
It's really incredible how bad this boy is at lying, given that he's a Slytherin, Pomfrey thought. She ran her gaze up and down his form, but found no injuries safe for the one she'd already noted. Which, of course, didn't mean they weren't just hidden underneath his clothes.
"Mr Snape, injuries of this magnitude require medical attention. From someone qualified for the job." She pointed sternly to one of the beds. "Sit so I can examine you." Madam Pomfrey then turned to get her kit and, more to herself than anyone else, muttered, "How you even got it into your head that you would treat these by yourself I cannot fathom."
She then turned back to the room, only to find it vacant. People should be really glad they weren't anywhere near the infuriated healer at that moment. Healer or not, she felt ready to behead the little menace the moment she next saw him. For the second time he'd done this! She was seriously contemplating going to Horace and demanding he chain the boy to a chair so that she could give him a piece of her mind.
Just then, Snape appeared again and this time she was quick to point her wand at the door behind him. Well, Headmaster, I did think of locking the door this time. She then pointed again at the bed, pressing her lips firmly together to stop herself from spilling death threats.
Only then did she notice that the boy that now sat in front of her was... Well, it was Snape, but somehow he was different. Gone was the split lip, but it was instead replaced by a slightly swollen eye and a big bruise on his left cheek that looked a few days old.
Madam Pomfrey cast a diagnostic spell that revealed a swollen eye, a bruised cheek and a cracked rib. Nothing about a lip. She wondered briefly where the split lip she'd seen a few moments ago had come from. Later, she'd think to ponder over the question of where all these injuries had come from, but at the moment she was too preoccupied with healing them to properly think about it.
"All right, shirt off," said the matron once she was done with healing the boy's face. "Shirt off," she repeated irritably only a moment later, making an impatient gesture with her hand.
Reluctantly, Snape complied and let the healer examine his rib cage. Madam Pomfrey pressed a finger on his pale torso. The boy hissed under his breath, but otherwise kept silent. The healer repeated the process a few more times until she found the cracked rib, then chanted a spell and gave him a dose of Skele-Gro. She noticed that throughout the whole process Snape had been actively trying to stop her from looking at his back. Seeing as the diagnostic spell hadn't revealed anything on that part of his body, Madam Pomfrey decided not to press the matter. She would, however, inform the Headmaster of every single one of her observations. She'd decided that Mr Severus Snape would become a puzzle the two of them would solve together.