Now until this point, Severus could've been almost certain that the boy with his deafness and overall sickly pallor, was a squib. Hermione had been of the same opinion.
He was proved wrong. Dreadfully wrong.
Samuel proved just how naive Severus's assumption had been...with his first ever accidental magic.
Destination, Determination, Deliberation.
He apparated.
"SAMUEL!"
He screamed. And the boy looked up at him from where he was climbing, his position on the frame was precarious and Severus knew he was about to fall. Running as fast as he could he reached the boy just as he fell and snatched him out of the air. He landed heavily on his back, the weight of the small boy upon his chest knocking the wind out of him.
Hermione worriedly ran to the side of him, "Severus is he all right?"
Samuel was crying and cradling his hand, which Severus quickly examined for damage.
"Nothing broken, just some scrapes" He said softly, and placed a kiss on the boys palm where the old wood had scraped the skin as the boy held on.
"Don't ever do that again!" Hermione enunciated to him, making sure he met her eyes and listened to every word. The chastised boy just carried on crying from his fright, and buried his face into Severus's neck.
"Come on I think he's learned his lesson, and we have to go" Severus said getting up from the ground and still cradling the whimpering boy to his side.
"What on earth possessed him to do that?" She asked him as they began to walk and he simply shrugged, running a calming hand down the boys back.
"He's seen us climb out the window frame often enough, he was just copying what we did" Severus answered with a grimace.
"The rail house had guttering, this doesn't" She gestured to the brick building in the small village they were foraging in. "He's just a boy Hermione, they do stupid things sometimes" and she simply sighed and nodded. "He frightened me Severus, thank god you were there" and he smiled back to her "I always will be".
Woosh.
As they were bathing in the river, from the bank came an excited shout, as he saw Sam waving.
"Hi Hi Hi !" The boy was smiling and waving...
At the immune that was making his steady way toward him.
"SAM!" Severus bellowed and had launched himself towards the river bank.
Instead of running as Severus had hoped, the boy just turned slightly to look at him in confusion as he came thundering out of the water.
He heard Hermione screaming for the boy behind him, but it was all a blur as the immune reached for Sam , who was still facing Severus and due to his hearing loss, totally unaware.
As a boy, Severus had never played football like most British boys, but instead had played rugby. That paid off now when he threw himself bodily into the immune, tackling it to the ground.
He was shirtless, with no weapon within grasp as the immune fought underneath him, trying to sink his teeth in. From his position on the sandy riverbank there wasn't even a big stick within reach to use as a weapon.
He heard Sam screaming, and froze when he heard the shwick noise of the crossbow releasing, though when it didn't impact the immune in his grasp (for Hermione never missed) he realised there must be another one of them.
With a grunt he grabbed a small stick and pushed it into the immune's mouth, the thing bit down instinctively on it.
Then he pushed the immune down and slammed his fist into its face, closing his mouth and eyes against the blood, lest he too be infected.
He punched over and over again until he ceased to feel the motions beneath him, only then did he wipe his face and open his eyes.
Skull caved in, the thing was dead. Truly dead.
Woosh
Hermione was sat by the fire, working with some rabbit furs. It was still summer, but she kept the furs of every animal she killed, and crudely tanned them. They wouldn't be winning any fashion contests with the discoloured furs, but winter was always on their minds, and the fur blankets she were making would be a godsend.
Sam was playing in the dirt near him with a small trowel, digging and making castles from the small pieces of kindling and Severus continued chopping wood. Suddenly Sam screamed and Severus nearly dropped the axe on his foot when he turned around.
There was an immune almost upon Sam, it was rotten and legless and so had been dragging itself over the ground.
He lurched forward grabbing Sam and violently throwing him backwards to safety as the teeth snapped towards him.
A vicious kick caved in the things skull and ceased it's movement.
Woosh
They were walking on a small bridge over the river, taking the more rural roads and doing their best to avoid detection. "Samuel get down from there!" Hermione had shouted to the boy who had climbed on the wall and was walking perilously close to the edge. He heard enough of her voice to look up, but ignored her come hither gestures and did a silly dance instead which made Severus chuckle, and Samuel smile.
Hermione jabbed her elbow into his ribs and he let out an oof as he bent over winded. "Don't encourage him!" she hissed and he barely had time to chuckle out an answer before there was a startled yelp from the boy, and they both looked up to see...nothing. Samuel was nowhere to been seen.
Hermione didn't even notice the splash of him hitting the water, because within seconds Severus had dropped the bag he was carrying and dived off the edge of the bridge, launching himself into the churning waters below.
She'd never seen a man that large move that quickly, and by the time she reached the edge of the bridge, Severus already had hold of Samuel and was carrying him on his chest, swimming backstroke to the shore.
She met them down there with a couple of furs out the bags and quickly took the shivering boy in her arms, wrapping him up and throwing another to Severus. Tears running down her face she snarled at him, "THAT is why you don't encourage him. He's a child, he doesn't know better unless we teach him." Her body was shaking with the force of her sobs, as she held the boy tightly to her chest. Severus, heedless of his own wet clothes pulled them both into his embrace.
"I'm sorry, you're right." He said dropping a kiss on both of their heads. "It's alright, it's over now, let's not dwell on what could have happened, Sam's safe and we're alright"
Woosh
They'd come upon the man near Auchreoch, on their way out of the Trossacks park. It had been clear that'd he'd been alone for a long time, and he was jittery and ill kept. Despite the circumstances, both Hermione and Severus had managed to maintain somewhat of a semblance of personal hygiene, though it seemed that had not been a concern for the man before them.
His clothes were torn and soiled with blood and other things that they didn't want to think of, and Severus was certain that the sharpened bone he had in his belt, was a human femur. Hopefully from an immune, though the thing that concerned him was the revolver sat beside it.
"Alright friend , alright, alright, better for seeing you than not, isn't it aye? Top of the morning, afternoon, evening to ya aye, ya needing a place to stay, a while to stay, to stay aye?"
Severus placed a hand on Hermione to make sure she stayed behind him, and pushed Samuel between them, in an attempt to keep him out of sight, but the mans glassy eyes spotted him, before snapping back to Severus with a smile that showed broken and rotten teeth.
The shepherds building looked tempting, especially out in open as they had been, but not at the risk of waking up with that bone dagger in his throat.
"Just passing through" Severus spoke levelly and the man screeched then laughed.
"Voice like a movie star this one aye, big screen, silver screen, tv screen, all the same aye?"
Severus said nothing and his hand was tight on Hermione.
"Anything for sale aye? I be liking the look of them furs I do, aye I do, it's mighty cold it is, cold alone, cold out here aye?"
The man was eyeing the jet black sheeps fur that Severus wore around his shoulders like a cloak, and the lighter ones both Hermione and Samuel wore. Severus insisted when Hermione made it that he'd look a fool, but she'd instead told him with heated look that he looked like a viking. He'd plundered her that night wearing it, and had worn it ever since.
"What are you offering" He said cautiously. If a trade was what it took to move passed without incident, then that's what he'd do. Severus was fast, but the revolver was faster. And since the painful reminder of his last encounter with guns, the bullet in his shoulder, still ached in cold weather, he'd rather pass without incident and trade the mad man some furs.
Grinning the man offered up various wares, speaking nonsense all the time, as ever curious Samuel peaked out cautiously from behind Hermione's legs.
There was a pile of bones fell to the side, as the man rummaged for things to offer in exchange.
"You been eating the dead friend?" Severus asked calmly, one hand holding the handle of the knife in his belt.
"Dead. Living. Just not the Living Dead or the dead living, no good if the dead are living but alright if you make the living dead aye?"
With caution Severus gave the man a spare fur, and a sheeps throw. In exchange for some useful tools, that had been raided from an army base.
"I've got something special I have, aye, special for something special indeed yes sir what say you, can't say no, aye?"
The look on Hermione's face was begging him to run, as she cupped her belly with one hand and held Samuel back with the other. Severus wished desperately for the man to turn his back on him, if only for a moment, though as of yet the man had made sure to face him at all times.
"Alright. Show me"
A wide smile was answer, and Severus stepped forward cautiously, as the man took a throw off of a metal box, then lifted the lid with a flourish.
Severus inhaled sharply. Medical supplies. And a lot of them. Pristine, in packaging. Among the packets and bottles were antibiotics and strong painkillers, even morphine. It had obviously been taken from a hospital, before the worst of the looting and rioting took place. Among the supplies were surgical ones, including sterile scissors and clamps still in packaging, saline swabs, iodine. Hermione's sharp intake of breath echoed his and he knew she was on the same track as him.
In any circumstances the box was a treasure trove, but what shook both Severus and Hermione was the fact that these things would be inordinately helpful for when she eventually gave birth.
"Alright friend. What's your price?" He asked and the mans face lit up as he laughed and pulled on his ears in a way that Severus was strangely reminded of house elves.
"Price price, what's a price, a sweet price for a sweet deal aye?" Then his eyes lit on Hermione and Samuel. "Aye, I know a price to buy, aye I do. I want to buy them"
Severus's gaze hardened and his hand hovered over the knife in his belt. "They are not for sale" he spat and the man only laughed and hopped about foot to foot, attempting to look around Severus.
"Not for sale, not for sale. Everything's for sale at the right price aye and I have the price I do, I have it aye right here" He gestured to the box below him and shot another look at Hermione and his eyes focussed with intent on Samuel.
"Mighty cold it is aye, mighty cold, Do they come as a pair aye? or would you sell the little one separate?"
A red haze covered his vision then and what happened next barely registered in his mind.
The next thing he knew, they were making their way further north and he had a shockingly painful new scar on his arm, which was only aggravated by the additional weight of the supplies in his bag and the boy sat upon his shoulders, and Hermione's tight grip upon his hand.
Woosh
"You should come with us" The women had offered, as they spoke over the motorway bridge and for a moment they had considered it.
"We're done with the main land, we're going to take our chances with Eigg" Severus had answered, and they had nodded their response.
"Well we wish you luck, sounds a bit risky to us though, there's sure to be immune their too and god knows what else, at least on the mainland you can run in any direction for a few miles before you hit sea"
"We'll take our chances" Hermione had confirmed. They didn't want to admit to the muggles, that the main reason they were going to Eigg was because there was only so many dead that could be on the very small rural island, and once they were dispatched, they'd be able to freely use magic once more.
"Are you sure you won't come with us?" They'd asked once more, and once more they'd declined.
Then They had parted ways and headed in opposite directions.
Woosh
He was on the climbing frame. The one that Severus had pulled him from. And as he swug about with a smile, Severus set off running, screaming the boys name.
You should come with us
Hermione was behind him and she was screaming too, though she would usually run laps around his lanky form, with her pregnancy she was much slower than usual and lagged behind.
He frightened me Severus, thank god you were there
His legs burned, and his heart was pumping so fast in his chest he thought he might crack a rib as he ran down the street towards the playground.
The howling was getting nearer and the wind whipped at his face making his eyes run, though when he saw the lanky form of a screamer speeding from the opposite direction he swung his arms, ducked his head and pushed harder, running faster than he thought he'd ever be able to do. The movement of his arms made the bullet in his shoulder ache, and the cut on his arm reopen. He felt hot blood seeping down his arms, and his lungs burned with fire and his whole body protested his rapid movement, while at the same time the Adrenalin pumping through his body pulsed a staccato beat that said go go GO!
You should come with us
He was closing in on them now, getting closer. Closer to the playground and closer to the howling. Still the deaf boy paid no attention to why they were running so quickly to get to him.
Suddenly it felt as if his body hit tar.
He felt like everything was moving in slow motion as the screamer jumped over the playground fence.
As Samuel's eyes's finally lifted and met Severus's with a smile, he felt a part of him break, because he knew.
Severus knew. Deep in his bones
For all his effort it wasn't going to be enough.
So preparing for the fight ahead, he did the only thing he could, and he gritted his teeth as his fist made contact with flesh.