"I need to tell you something," Severus whispered in Saturnine's ear one morning. "And then I need you to go back to Cokeworth with me—one last time."

Saturnine's first impulse was to say no to him; nothing could ever convince her to go back to that dreadful slum of a town. Something in her brother's tone of voice made her reconsider. She waited to hear his reason for wanting her to return.

Severus told her everything about how he'd just bought Cove Cottage from Albus Dumbledore on a whim. And he shared his decision to burn their old childhood home down to the ground now that it was useless. She was on board with the plan right away, and they Apparated to the Midlands later that very morning.

"Don't come inside if you don't want to," Severus cautioned as they stood in front of the last dwelling on Spinner's End. It was a dilapidated brick house at the end of a street, full of similar decrepit buildings—a depressing sight if ever there was one.

Saturnine nodded for him to proceed without her. She knew she could never find it in herself to pass that threshold again. Too many awful memories clung to that building like sinful ghosts; she'd gone as far as she could.

"I'll wait here," she murmured in a breath before pulling up the zip of her coat. Chills ran up and down her arms, even though the temperature was that of the habitually cool, cloudy, wet summer.

"I just want to pack my books and the potions equipment I've left behind," Severus said as he reached in one of his frock coat pockets for the front door key.

A key. It was so incongruous that he still used a Muggle key that Saturnine couldn't help but stare at the small, worn-out, metallic object in her brother's hand. Nothing's changed, she thought bitterly.

Moving to the side a little, she took a long look at the dusty brown facade while Severus worked the door open. She noticed a familiar set of curtains—nothing at all.

"I—uh—I saved the stuff you left in our room when—" Severus' voice faltered. He froze on the sill. His upper body turned towards her.

Saturnine could almost see the beginning of the hall behind her brother's lean frame. Same ugly brownish tiles, she thought as she shook her head. "Leave it. There's nothing in there that I want."

"Very well," Severus nodded. "I won't be long—ten minutes at most."

He was almost inside when he turned back to face her, his left hand still holding the door open. "Will you be alright?"

Saturnine forced herself to smile as she said, "I'll manage, don't worry. Take your time."

Severus hesitated a second or two before moving inside and closing the door. It shut with a loud thunk, and Saturnine breathed slightly easier now that the window into her past had closed. She would never understand how Severus could have returned home. How he could have made himself come back to Cokeworth, summer after summer, to spend almost all his holidays in this godforsaken place. If it had been her, she'd have tried to sell this ruin to buy something else—anything else.

Well, she thought as she started pacing up and down the street, maybe it's so shabby that it isn't worth a dime. She knew next to nothing about real estate and market value, she realised. She ought to ask Severus about it someday.

The time Saturnine spent waiting outside their old childhood home was the longest ten-ish minutes of her life. Less than two minutes in, she itched to Apparate away. So strong was the need to be elsewhere, she felt as if bugs crawled up and down her arms. But she had promised to stay, and so she did.

Willing her mind not to dwell on the dreadful memories seeping from the surrounding brick walls like a tangible, living force, Saturnine told herself that it wasn't all that bad. There had been some happy moments too, hadn't there? Funny, she couldn't remember any. Now, the dreadful ones far outweighed any of the sweeter memories.

In the vain hope to engage her brain in something, she tried cataloguing what she could have left behind. What things could Severus have safe-kept for her? Saturnine had left for France mere days after finishing up at Hogwarts. She had only remained in Britain long enough to send an owl to her mother, warning her not to expect her back, and purchase the train tickets to get herself across the channel. She had waited an extra day for a reply to her missive home. But none came, and that had cemented her resolve.

Back then, Saturnine had carried most of her belongings in her trunk: all the clothes she hadn't outgrown, her school books, and her favourite Muggle stories. She always took care to carry along the important things, lest she may not find them again when she returned home. What could she have left behind but a bunch of old, ill-fitting clothes, children's novels and an assortment of drawings and poems scribbled on loose sheets of graph paper?

Yes, she decided a while later, I have left behind nothing that matters.

Saturnine was crouched, leaning against the neighbours' front wall, when a stray thought hit her. She stood up faster than if a Stinging Hex had hit her. Sweet Circe, there might be something of value in that rickety house, after all. A tiny, almost insignificant thing: a photograph kept in a worn-out, coral cardboard shoebox.

Would it still be there?

Biting her lip, Saturnine moved closer to the last house on Spinner's End. Trying to strengthen her resolve, she weighed how much she wanted to look at that photograph again. Was it worth going back in, and the number of old nightmares that were sure to return if she did?

Thinking of the many nights where she had wished—with tear-filled eyes and an aching, broken heart—that she'd had taken it with her, her decision was made.

Throat impossibly dry, fingers shaking, Saturnine pushed open the front door with a practised gesture. She knew full well how the handle would chafe against her palm if she weren't careful and how she had better not push it all the way if she didn't want to damage the plastered wall that stood at too close an angle inside.

Forcing herself to take slow, measured breaths, Saturnine crossed through the hall and entered the living room. She chose not to look at the kitchen on the way and tried not to focus too much on the old, threadbare sofa standing on her right—it was a painfully familiar sight. The empty bookshelves that faced her told her that Severus had made good progress in his packing up. They were more numerous than she remembered, and she felt the barest of a smirk tug at her lips—they'd have to enlarge the cottage again to fit all of her brother's books in it.

The tell-tale sounds of the floorboards creaking above her head told her that her sibling was upstairs, busy moving about their old bedroom—well, Severus' bedroom now. She wasn't sure she would have had the courage to ascend the stairs if he hadn't been there already. As it was, she tried to trick her mind into thinking that she only went up to join him—it was better than facing the truth of what she was doing.

Upon hearing her come up, Severus poked his head out of their old bedroom with a curious expression on his face. "Saturnine?" he asked, looking as if he couldn't believe that she'd entered the house.

Seeing him was like a much-needed breath of fresh air amidst the stench of stale memories that clung to the place. She crossed the landing in two quick strides and was into his open arms a moment later. It was only then that she realised how badly she shook. Closing her eyes and burrowing herself in Severus' warm embrace, she could almost trick herself into believing that she was back in their living room at Cove Cottage.

"Hush, 'Nine," Severus whispered, his voice infinitely soft. "What did you come up here for, sweetie?"

That old term of endearment that she hadn't heard since she had turned twelve or something caused her to hiccup a sob, and Severus held her a little more tightly.

"There's something I wanted," she muttered into the cotton of his sweatshirt. With her eyes still closed against the ugliness of her surroundings, she made herself ask, "What did you do with all of their stuff?"

Her brother shuddered at the question. "I got rid of most of what was downstairs. The rest I left where it was," he said with little inflexion to his voice. Saturnine felt him turn his head. She gathered from his movement that he gazed at the door to their parent's old bedroom. "I—I haven't been in there once since he died."

That revelation did not surprise Saturnine—bravery only went so far. Severus might have found it in him to come back to this joke of a home for the holidays, but she had a sense that he would sooner agree to walk through the fires of hell before he willingly crossed that threshold again.

"I need to get something in there," Saturnine whispered in a voice that lacked resolve. Where she would find the strength to go back in, she did not know. She brought up the memory of that dearly held photograph and felt her feet moving, her body disentangling itself from her brother's reassuring embrace.

"Saturnine?" Severus called out after her, his voice laced with anguish.

Despite her queasiness, she kept walking. Somewhere along the way, she had decided that life and the universe owed her that photograph. It was hers—paid for in pain and tears—and she wouldn't leave without it.

Refusing to touch the austere, peeling bedroom door, she pulled out her wand and spelled it open. Shutting off her brain as much as she could, Saturnine tried not to pay attention to what it revealed—she already knew what she would find, after all. Their parents' old bedroom was like most of the house; it hadn't changed.

The air was stuffy and clogged with dust, and she coughed as she moved to the large oak wardrobe that sat forlornly in the far-left corner. With a quick flick of her wrist, she spelled it open and peered inside. There, tucked in its usual spot at the bottom of the cabinet, next to her mother's scruffy leather shoes and ankle-high boots, was the worn-out cardboard shoebox. It rested under a heavy layer of dust that made its surface look more grey than coral. Saturnine blew the grime off with a minor effort of will before crouching down to pick up the box. The weight of it was familiar in her hands, and she could see herself making the same gesture repeatedly in her memory. Without opening the lid, she knew that all the photographs were accounted for—the weight of the box told her so.

She found Severus anxiously waiting for her near the top of the stairs. He eyed the box in her hands with a quizzical look.

"I have everything now," Saturnine told him before taking the stairs down. "I'll wait outside."


It was no struggle at all to burn the place to a crisp a moment later. And as if nothing special had happened, they returned to Cove Cottage and the two sons they had left behind. They said nothing more about their trip north that day. Between Severus' breakthrough with the Werewolf Cub Potion and the boys' surprising requests for apprenticeships, Saturnine forgot all about the photographs she had taken with her.

Two days later, it drifted back to her mind as she readied herself to go to bed. The frame she got for Severus at Christmas—which always rested on his bedside table whether he was in Cornwall or at Hogwarts—caught her attention. And with it returned the memories of their recent trip down memory lane.

Moving to the living room, she found the coat she'd been wearing that day. It hadn't moved from the peg where she had hung it upon her return. Reaching into the right-side pocket, she recovered the shrunken shoebox. An enlarging spell later, it was back to its usual size, resting between her hands once more.

Without fully opening the lid, she slipped her fingers inside and brushed the photographs aside until she had a good grasp on the one in the third spot from the top. She pulled it out and closed the lid again without once looking inside. There would be time for that later—maybe. For now, she decided, the shoebox could gather dust again on the tallest shelf of their living room.

Returning to the bedroom she shared with her brother, Saturnine found Severus where she had left him, laying down atop his bed, engrossed in a Muggle novel. For a Slytherin, her sibling had a love for the written word that almost rivalled her Ravenclaw tendencies.

"Have a moment?" she asked, sitting down by his side.

Severus mm-hmmed before closing his book and resting it on the bedside table. He noticed the snapshot in her hand at once and arched an eyebrow.

"Is this what was in that shoebox?" he asked. "Photographs?"

Saturnine was sure Severus had been with her that afternoon when their mother took that box down into the living room to sift through it for some reason or other. But then, if it was the only time where he had seen it, it wasn't surprising that he'd forgotten all about it.

"I guess you wouldn't remember, but it was Mom's," she explained. "She kept some old photographs in there," she pointed out. "Some people in them must come from the Prince line, going by their resemblance to Mom. Others, I'm guessing from her time at Hogwarts." She sighed. "I recognised no one, save from her."

Severus frowned in disbelief. "Didn't think you'd be interested in safekeeping strangers."

"I'm not. I used to enjoy looking at them when I was little." Allowing a mischievous smile to grace her lips, she added, "It was the first time I'd seen wizarding photographs. The people in them moved, and—well, you know me."

Severus chuckled in understanding. He did know her.

Growing serious again, Saturnine heaved in a deep breath. It mattered to her that her brother understood what this photograph meant to her—almost as much as getting it back had.

"While I was away, I missed you terribly," Saturnine started, feeling tears well up in her eyes. "I had nothing of you—nothing to remember you by but my memories and regrets; I had plenty of those.

"I kept thinking of this one photograph I knew of," she continued, and her fingers tightened their hold on the glossy piece of paper of their own accord. "Silly, I know. But I'd have given anything to have had it with me. Call me sentimental if you wish, but I couldn't let it burn—not that one." The pressure behind her eyes was inviting, and it was getting harder to fight off the tears. Even her voice faltered under the overflowing emotions. "I did not care for anything in that old house, save for that one photograph. It's not magical. It doesn't move or anything, but it's always been my favourite." She heaved in a deep, shuddery breath.

"I love the story it tells," Saturnine admitted as the first tears rolled down her cheeks. "It reminds me of who and what we are." With that admission, she turned the photograph over and placed it on the mattress between the two of them. She let the small photograph do the rest of the talking for her. After all, pictures were worth a thousand words.

Severus' gaze softened as he glanced down, and his fingers shook slightly as he picked it up to allow for a closer inspection.

"I'll make you a frame for it," he said a while later, his own voice heavy with emotion. "A strong one—unbreakable. So you must never part from it."

"That would be lovely, Sev. Thank you," she said, exhaling, reaching up to curl her fingers around his.

Their gazes met. Looking up into her brother's eyes, reading the emotions in his obsidian gaze, Saturnine knew it was a worthy reflection of her own feelings. And if eyes were the window to the soul, it would seem theirs had only one thing to say: "Always."