2
Out of the Closed Sea and Black Night of Thought
When in the widening circle of rebirth
To a new flesh my traveled soul shall come,
And try again the unremembered earth
With the old sadness for the immortal home
-When in the Widening Circle of Rebirth, Fernando Pessoa
He didn't know how long it had been since he'd drifted off in Fawkes's clutches. He remembered blurs of rock and tree, of ocean and stars. He surely knew the pang of awareness after the bird dropped him unceremoniously on hard ground, where tailbone met jagged sharpness and he cursed under his breath, throat still searing with pain. He rolled to his side and saw Fawkes flying already in the distance, swallowed by fog.
Bloody rotten pheasant, he wanted to howl into the night's chill, but his throat was painfully dry and the moist, chill air made him wheeze. He found himself deposited on a rocky shore, dark ocean lapping lazily at his ankles. He was partially concealed under a stony edifice of cliff and the air smelled of salt and the spicy smoke of distant fires. Perhaps the bird wished him to die in better scenery, and the thought irked him mightily. He entertained a brief fantasy of roasting it over a fire, skewered on a spit, until the skin cracked and bubbled, with a bit of garlic and mashed turnip on the side...
His contemplation was interrupted by a stern, husky voice from above-
"Boy-o, what yeh think yeh're doin', all beached like a famished seal on those rocks there? Yeh'll cetch yeh're death o' fever, so yeh will, had it in yeh're mind t' die, then?"
A skinny, hunched old woman emerged from darkness carrying a lantern several feet from him and loped across the rocks on bare feet like a goat. She drew nearer, muttering to herself in an unintelligible, melodic language that sounded to him like Gaelic. In flickering lamplight, he saw the deep lines in her tanned, weather-beaten face, the hard, square set of her jaw, her small, close-set, glinting black eyes, and a mess of short, curly hair the color of steel. She wore a shapeless, tatty woolen dress that fell to her lean calves and a thin beige knitted shawl covered her broad shoulders
She loomed above, and searched him with her eyes over her narrow, crooked nose, "So, yeh did," She lowered the lantern, better to see his face, thin lips set in a tight line. "Yeh've got the look o' the lost etched 'bout yehr features, so yeh do. There's folks what come 'round t' jump from the cliffs an' dash their 'eads on these rocks from time t' time, I s'pose yeh'd be one o' them, then. Luck should 'ave it, won't be draggin' yehr carcass off the banks this night."
He struggled to prop himself on his elbows, flinched at the scrape and grind of jagged rocks against his bones and opened his mouth-
"Seems a bleedin' shame when yeh've got hands like that, weave a fine net in no time'tall. Can't be wantin' t' die'f yeh've got a spot o' work in yeh. Gives th' soul meanin', it does."
Well, perhaps she had words enough for the both of them.
She gripped his arm with her gnarled, wrinkled hand and pulled him to his feet with surprising ease for her antiquity. In one swift, fluid gesture, she tossed her lantern into her other hand and had his arm wound about her stooped shoulders.
"Yeh'll be wantin' t' call me Mairead. Don't s'pose yeh have a name, then?" He'd given up on talking and allowed himself a moment to relax against her sturdier frame, his mouth dry and hands clammy. "I'll be callin' yeh Seamus. Even sullen boys what turn up half dead on my shores ought t' have a name t' be called. Off we go. We've a-ways t' the cottage."
Severus hobbled with her in silence, choking every now and then on oppressively thick, rolling night mist. Despite the hard set of her jaw and apparent waspishness, she was patient and stopped whenever he needed a moment to gather strength for the next few steps.
When they reached her ramshackle thatch-roofed hut, she fussed over his robes. "Ach aye, an' this blood-stained cloak, boy! What might ye've been thinkin' t' jump these cliffs dressed in such a manner, I might wonder! An' don't yeh be givin' me that wiltin' look, lad, when yeh're 's old 's I am, grown men're still blushin' boys, the lot. Off t' th' loo, with yeh t' peel those filthy scraps off, then!"
She dragged him down a small, dim hallway into her cramped lavatory and helped him to sit on the lid of her wobbly toilet. She turned the tarnished silver taps of her ancient, chipped clawfoot tub after she inspected the drain and steam clouded the room as she turned and flinty eyes appraised him.
"Yeh'll be needin' a proper wash. Blood an' filth all about yeh. I s'pose yeh can do as much as undoin' yehr fastenin's, but yeh'll need a boost into th' tub, yeh're not so solid on yehr legs, yet."
Stirred from his sluggishness, Severus raised an eyebrow as a plea for modesty, slumped against the back of her toilet with his hands limp at his sides. She couldn't mean to-
She slapped a knee and her serrated laugh bounced off the walls, revealing a crooked smile of mostly missing teeth. "Aye, yeh're some blushin' maid, boy? I've been midwife t' all the mothers 'n this village fer over seventy years, been Bean Feasa t' boys an' men fer almost 's long. I've seen things'll turn that filthy hair white. 'F I see somethin' I've not seen a'fore, I'm like t' shoot it."
Her harshness reminded him a little of his mother, or himself. Had he ever been asked, Severus Snape would have said that he was not a man to be bidden, but that would have been a damnable lie if he'd the strength of character to freely admit it. Having spent decades in the thrall of two great masters, however, fortified in him the most important of Slytherin attributes: self-preservation and the recognition of one's place amidst powerful forces. The crooked old woman boring holes into him with her eyes seemed just as compelling in that moment. He resolved, for now, to obey.
Fingers trembling, he fumbled with his buttons as she turned to bat at the water with long, withered fingers and jerked taps left and right. After several moments, she slapped his hands away with an exasperated "FEH!" and deftly unbuttoned his waistcoat in seconds, just as quickly peeled it from his limp arms, then went to work on the stained white shirt beneath while she tutted and shook her head.
Steam kissed his exposed throat and she drew back, beady black eyes slightly widened. "A horror, 't is. Though, seems mostly healed." She prodded at it indelicately with the tip of a long finger. He winced. "We'll be cleanin' it, then, an' a bandage an' salve ought do well."
After she'd bathed him with clinical detachment and dressed him in a set of greying, patched woolen flannels, the old woman produced a thick, camphorous-smelling salve from a cracked clay jar and slathered it on his wound, then wrapped a bandage snug around his throat. She vowed to attend to his soiled clothes and helped him limp into a small sparsely furnished room with a low, textured ceiling and peeling wallpaper. A threadbare cot enticed him beneath a smudged window, bathed in flickering light from a lone candle standing sentry on the sill. The room's bare asceticism appealed to his love of simplicity and the sight of it soothed the marrow in his bones.
"No grander'n a hole 'n th' wall, but it's what I 'ave and yeh're lucky with th' air in yeh're lungs, as 't is."
When she'd settled him in the cot and drew the musty quilts to his chin, she produced a vial from a deep pocket in her tawny dress and uncorked it.
"Drink it. Helps with th' pain an' gives yeh a dreamless wink, I reck'n yeh've 'ad a little much excitement for th' day 's it is."
It tasted of bitter herbs Severus easily identified.
Yarrow, valerian, clove he recited to himself as the candle extinguished of its own accord and his eyes slipped shut to welcome darkness, Devil's claw.
He fell, as promised, into dreamless sleep.
The next few days, the old woman informed him in clipped tones while wrestling a thick blue jumper over his stubborn, squirming arms, he spent in the throes of scorching fevers and near constant sleep. He had a vague awareness of some interruptions, as fever dreams are wont to give the sick; the taste of foul potions on his slack tongue, the old woman's low and stern commands to roll here and there, the sting of acrid smoke from burning herbs wafted toward his nostrils, the clammy flesh of old hands, dry and thin as autumn leaves, feather-light, brushing his temples and cheekbones.
"An' ache aye, th' mutterin' what I heard 'n the night, like some wretched thing stole yehr lost love!" It had. "Yeh crashed out th' cot a few times an' I thank yeh t' remember, 't was none too simple t' get yeh back in! Yeh're a mite heavier than yeh seem, even so frail 's yeh look!"
He spied twilight through the smudged panes of the window beside his cot, head still swimming as she lifted his legs to dangle over the side of the cot so she could help him wiggle into a set of corduroy trousers.
"Yeh'll be needin' some food, I reck'n. I've a beef 'n barley, or roast pheasant. Not much else 'sides a crust o' bread 'n veg, which'll be yehr pleasure, boy?"
Remembering the jagged shore rocks Dumbledore's enchanted turkey unceremoniously dropped him to, the corner of his mouth twitched into the slightest expression of cruel mirth and he spoke to her for the first time.
"The pheasant."
Days spent with the old woman felt to Severus like slowly stirring from a long nightmare.
First, she coaxed him into walking again. After an age spent confined to his cot, his stiffened legs ached and buckled with disuse. She'd taken to smacking the backs of his knees with a crudely carved birch cane, ignoring his remarkably creative strings of curses and protests, to quicken him as his laborious treks through the house gradually lengthened. Finally, the morning came when she presented the knobby stick to him in a brusque and ceremonious manner, so he might lean into it as she brought him through her garden behind the hut.
She pointed at shrubs and thickets of lush green herbs, flowering buds and twisted branches, the names of which danced familiarly on his tongue like his mother's nursery songs, accompanied by the old woman's hums of approval. Yarrow and mint and hollyhocks, basil and root of mandrake and devil's snare, venomous tentacula, triffid, Angel's Trumpet, shrivelfig, stinging nettles and wormwood and belladonna.
She fed him with relish and scolded him often as she caught loose skin on his ribs and arms with pincer-like fingertips, muttering "Ach aye!" and a few harsh curses in Gaelic as she piled his plates high with potatoes and roast meat every night. She rarely ate in his presence even when invited, preferring to lean against the handle of her iron stove, wringing a tea towel in her hands, and her unwavering ebon gaze never left him until his plate was empty and he moaned in protest at the suggestion of more food.
To earn his keep, she taught him how to weave fishing nets with jute and flaxen rope, which she would trade with the grateful village fishermen for heaps of cod, the occasional turbot and on rarer occasions to Mairead's great delight, a fat stingray. As she'd predicted on the night of their meeting, his long, agile fingers made quick work of the mindless task and produced several strong and intricate nets which fetched "a thumpin' good trade." He wove in sun-dappled silence under her parlor window in a creaky, overstuffed living chair he'd shortly claimed as his own and sometimes thought of spiders dangling on fine gossamer threads.
She bade him work in the garden when his balance would allow for kneeling in the dirt. The familiar tactile pleasure of sinking his fingers into soft, fertile soil, the tickle of leaves on the tip of his nose and the earthy smell of live flora easily made this his favorite task.
The soft trickle of water in the distance and the smell of earth all around him reminded him of his mother when he was very young, as she taught him to tend and harvest their small vegetable garden. They were too poor to go to the produce stalls or shops often, so they supplemented their modest meals with the roots and bulbs they nourished together.
Dreggy little hands prized from the ground a fat bulb crusted with loam; a precious reward for a few long minute's grunting and pulling with all his tiny body's strength. "Mum!" he exclaimed, unable to take his eyes away from his prize as he brushed caked dirt from it in reverence.
Mother pressed warm lips to his temple, sweaty from the effort of harvest. "Ah, what have we, little love?"
"Dunno..." He furrowed his brows in frustration as he thought hard. "I forgot!"
"Well," she suggested as she reached for the bulb to examine it. "It's round, and white, with a little tail and all those leaves up top, you see here? Remember the pictures in our book, Severus?"
He wrinkled his nose in effort and gasped when he remembered. "Turnip!" he barked excitedly and snatched it delicately from her hands, so he could turn it about in his.
"Right," She flopped to her shins in the dirt and cuddled him close. "Shall we have it mashed up for dinner tonight, Severus?"
His reluctance to leave his greenery and the old woman's terse acknowledgment of his advanced talent with herbs assured that Severus was rarely torn away from his toil until she endeavored to test his aptitude at tinctures, balms, salves, and medicinal draughts. Something withered and sad inside him unfurled with primal longing when she led him to her crude set-up in a cramped shed attached to her hut. Without further instruction, he immediately launched himself into brewing as the old woman's glittering eyes scrutinized him from the open doorway, fighting a slight smile.
"How is it that you brew without a wand?" he asked while he hovered his own over a simmering analgesic draught one afternoon when he'd felt her glide into place behind him.
"Feh!" she replied and rapped her knuckles sharply on the doorframe. He turned to glance at her over his shoulder. "Twigs what get in the way of a healer's art carry no romance fer me, Seamus. Told yeh, didn't I, th' best work's done with th' hands." Nevertheless, she produced from her sleeve a stubby, thick, hand-whittled wand still bearing some knots of the branch from which it came and tossed it to him.
"Pine," he intoned as the pad of his thumb traced rough-hewn length of it, rigid and unyielding.
"Core o' kelpie hair, though 't matters not, I've ten wands at th' end o' me hands," she held her hand up and gave her fingers a demonstrative wiggle. The wand sensed its master's beckoning gesture and floated in an arc to land in Mairead's waiting palm.
"Yeh've talent fer that," she jutted her chin toward the cauldron after a moment. "Healer's touch, they call it. 'f I didn't find you 'n th' rocks, I'd wager yeh were one 'f me own." Her eyes flitted to him curiously as she turned and strode away.
One morning, over a cup of strong tea from leaves he'd plucked and dried himself, she fixed him with another striking, contemplative glare after moments of lingering, yet comfortable silence.
"Yeh know who Seamus is?"
He peeled his gaze away from the window to raise an inquisitive brow.
"Silly, coy look don't suit yeh well. Yeh've another, truer name an' we both know it. T'was th' name o' my first boy. Lost 'im to dragon pox when he was shy o' six months. Little, fierce thing 'e was. Had th' colic an' spent nights an' days on end squallin' like a banshee, 'is face 's red 's the day 'e was born. S'pose I might've thought o' him when..."
As if capable of self-consciousness, she bit her narrow bottom lip and turned her eyes to the cooling contents in her cup before holding her fingers over it until it steamed again. "Yeh'll forgive an old woman 'er natterin', I s'pose?"
His terse nod and the flutter of his long fingers around his cup invited her to continue.
"I was only nineteen years from my mother's birthin' cot an' my heart hadn't steeled itself 'gainst the gales of mournin'. Would've nearly wasted away, but we still had our little girl, though she was worse for th' wear ever after. Death 'as a way of touchin' children in wretched ways. After my husband drowned, I lost my little Eileen, too. Bundled away in th' night with one o' them swarthy black Irish what promised 'er the very moon an' gave her nothin' but broken bones an' misery."
He felt the color drain from his face all at once and he gritted his teeth.
"Left me t' wither alone 'n this hut, an' shunted what she called a 'stiflin', wretched half-life under her mother's thumb.' She married the beast soon after. Heard she'd had a baby boy. Named 'im Severus-."
"And hung herself in her kitchen when he was sixteen." He interjected, voice deadly soft.
His grandmother's eyes widened, and she tilted her head as they narrowed again with realization. Equally steely gazes fixed on one another as silence closed the room up like a fist
"So 't is, then." Her tone held no surprise. His knuckles whitened as his hands clutched the fabric of his trousers and the color drained from his cheeks. He summoned what they now called his cane until he felt its smooth pommel ensconced in his grasp and swept from the room.