I woke up at seven in the morning. After lying in bed for a few minutes, I got up and went to the bathroom to shower and brush my teeth. When that was done, I got dressed in the forest green trousers and shirt that Mrs. Petrov had given me last night and then went to the kitchen. Ana was stirring a pot of what looked like oatmeal, Mr. Petrov was making toast, Niko was taking milk, butter, and honey out of a cabinet that had a Cooling Charm on it, and Mrs. Petrov and Sarah were taking bowls and cups out.
"Good morning, Severus," said Mrs. Petrov when she saw me. "Did you sleep well?" I nodded and she pointed to a drawer. "Silverware is in there. You can set out the spoons and a couple of knives for the butter on the kitchen table. We only use the dining room for dinner or if there are guests."
I took a handful of spoons and two butter knives from the drawer and then set them on the kitchen table, which had six chairs around it. A couple minutes after that, the oatmeal was ready and Ana scooped it out into bowls, which Sarah and Niko brought over to the table. I took the plate with the stacks of toast over, and then everyone sat down. Mrs. Petrov said a short grace, and then she poured some milk and spooned some honey into my oatmeal. She also handed me two slices of toast and Sarah pushed the crock of butter and jar of strawberry jam over to me to spread on the toast. Mr. Petrov handed me a glass of orange juice, ignoring my protest that I could pour it myself.
I began eating my breakfast, which was very good, and felt a little uncomfortable over how nice the Petrovs and Sarah were being to me, even if Mrs. Petrov treated her kids the exact same way she treated me, including the whole adding milk and honey to their oatmeal. Without my having to ask, she refilled my bowl when I was done and gave me some more toast.
After breakfast, Niko and Sarah cleared the table and washed the dishes. Mrs. Petrov had me help her get the apothecary ready for opening, while Mr. Petrov went to work, which was a desk job at the wizarding bank, Gringotts. Frances Malone and the one other employee, Brian Highmore, showed up ten minutes to nine. Brian was new, for my mother had worked at Petrov's Potions before she had fallen ill and died, and he was hired in her place. He helped Mrs. Petrov brew potions, while Frances filled prescriptions and ran the cash register. Mrs. Petrov introduced me to them, and Frances said sympathetically, "I am very sorry about your mother. She was a wonderful woman, and very good at brewing Potions."
At precisely nine o'clock, the apothecary was open for business. I followed Mrs. Petrov and Brian to the Potions lab located in the back. The walls were completely covered with shelves and cupboards of potion ingredients, empty flasks and bottles, and full ones of potions. There were two tables to prepare ingredients on, complete with mortars, pestles, and knives, and another table set up with four cauldrons and several stirrers.
"Brian, please start a batch of Nutrient Potion," directed Mrs. Petrov. "Severus, come with me. I need to determine what supplies and books relating to Potions you have, and then see how much you know already." She looked over my books and supplies, not commenting on the fact that they were either secondhand or had once belonged to my mother. She did comment on the fact that I had made notes in the margins of the books, asking if I had made them or the previous owner had. Once she had ascertained that I had made the notes, she looked rather impressed at the fact that I was improving on potion receipts, and added, "I also have a habit of making notes in my books, especially when I don't have my commonplace book handy and I am in too big of a hurry to summon it. However, I do transcribe everything into my notebooks later on."
Since she had a few blank notebooks lying around, she insisted on giving me one to use as my commonplace book. It was quite thick, and she inscribed my name on the dark green cover with magic. After that, she spent half an hour quizzing me on the theoretical part of Potions, looking quite impressed when she was done. "Your knowledge is almost as great as your mother's, Severus. And you appear to be quite as brilliant as Niko said about you. Now, let's have you brew something."
She took down a book, flipped through it, and then stopped at a page. "Here, you can brew an Extra-Strength Fever Reducer." She handed the book to me, which turned out to be one of her notebooks, as the contents were hand-written, either copied from a book or recipes that she had improved in some way. The potion she was having me brew wasn't a terribly complicated one, so I had little chance of messing it up in some way, but neither was it so simple as to be construed as an insult against my abilities.
I was in the process of gathering the necessary ingredients, when Mrs. Petrov said, "Just summon them, Severus. It saves time having to hunt for them, especially as you don't know how I've arranged them. It's alphabetical, by the way. And don't worry about not being of age to do magic outside of school. The Ministry won't be able to detect it, since you're in a magical household, and one that's in Diagon Alley at that. Just don't use magic outside of the apothecary except in dire situations."
"All right, Mrs. Petrov," I replied. I summoned the ingredients and started work on the potion, while Mrs. Petrov began brewing an antidote of some sort. I concentrated on my work, which was soothing in a way as it took my mind off my troubles. Two hours later, I was done, and she inspected my work.
"Excellent work, Severus," she said. "And I do not give out compliments lightly. I only give them when they are deserved."
I felt my face heat up a bit, for I wasn't used to being complimented. Only my mother and Lily had praised me frequently. Well, Professor Slughorn had praised my ability in Potions in first year, but after that, he started taking it for granted and so rarely thought to compliment me anymore.
Mrs. Petrov gestured at a shelf of empty bottles and several floated over to her and landed on the table. "Would you bottle up the Fever Reducer, please?" She then saw my startled look and explained, "That was a combination of wandless magic and a non-verbal spell. All Hogwarts students learn how to do non-verbal spells in sixth-year. Wandless magic, however, is mostly limited to the Romany people, other than the things children do before they start school and learn to use a wand." She glanced at Brian, and after seeing that he was completely engrossed in his potion, offered in a whisper, "I would be willing to teach you wandless magic, Severus. Since you are my apprentice and all."
"I would like that, Mrs. Petrov," I answered, intrigued.
"We can start tomorrow afternoon then." Then in a louder voice, she said, "All right, please bottle up the Fever Reducer, Severus, and clean up. I'm going to go make lunch."
Lunch turned out to be chicken and roast beef sandwiches, salad, and tomato soup. Mrs. Petrov took care of the register and filling prescriptions while Frances ate her lunch. When Frances went back to work, Mrs. Petrov had lunch, and asked me to sit with her so that we could have a private talk.
"Severus, I know I'm not your mother, nor could I ever take her place, but if you need someone to talk to, feel free to talk with me. I may not have lost the friendship of my best friend, but I can sympathize with you on other matters and will do my best to help you."
Unfortunately, I wasn't in the mood for any sympathy or pity, and without thinking, rather rudely said, "I don't need your pity. Besides, I bet you never lost a parent." I then realized what I had said and attempted to apologize, but before I could say more than "Mrs. Petrov, I didn't-", she interrupted me.
"It's quite all right, Severus. I've snapped at other people before. Now, let me explain. Both my parents are dead, and I have suffered before, and not just the regular sort of prejudice Romany people have been facing from Gejos, that is, non-Gypsies, for centuries. You know about World War Two and the Holocaust, correct?"
"Yes, but wasn't the Holocaust targeted mainly at Jewish people?" I asked.
"While Jewish people were a main target, other groups of people that Adolf Hitler considered to be 'subhuman' or disliked in some way were also targeted, which included the Roma, as well as Slavic people, homosexuals, Communists, those that were deaf or otherwise disabled, and some Catholic nuns and priests," responded Mrs. Petrov. "My family, being Roma, were targeted, and as my parents were Squibs and my brother and I were too young to have been fully trained in advanced magic, we could not protect ourselves with magic. So we were shipped off to the concentration camps, along with a number of other Romany families. My father, being older than forty-five, was sent off to the gas chambers immediately. My brother Nikolas died a few days before liberation, according to Vladek, who was friends with him. Niko is named after my brother, by the way. My mother, whom Maria is named after, became ill with typhus after about a year in the camps, and I was powerless to save her. It's not as if I had any way to brew any potions to help her, and she was already becoming weaker before that. I survived due to luck, strength, and the fact that Lise and I were best friends and stuck together. If either of us had been alone, no doubt we would have given up long before and become one of the millions that perished in the Holocaust. My husband's parents also died, and Ana is named after Vladek's mother."
"Millions of people died in the Holocaust?" I asked in shock, for I hadn't known that.
"Yes. At least six millions Jewish people died, and almost as many other people that didn't fit Hitler's idea of the 'Aryan race'. And some, like Lise's father, survived the camps only to die shortly after because they weren't used to the regular food given to them and became sick. In short, the camps were completely horrible. You-Know-Who may be a monster who is like Hitler in many ways, but he at least isn't rounding up Muggleborns and shipping them off to concentration camps, where they are starved and worked to death."
I winced at that, and then said, "Mrs. Petrov, I'm really sorry. About snapping at you and about everything you've been through. I wish you never had gone through it."
"The past cannot be changed, Severus," said Mrs. Petrov. "I have accepted it and moved on with my life. After the war, I married Vladek and Lise married Eli and the four of us moved to England. I obtained my Potions Mastery, Vladek and I worked and saved our money for a few years until we had enough to start the apothecary, and then we had our children. Prejudice against the Roma isn't as prevalent anymore, except for certain old pureblood families that are probably Voldemort supporters or at least agree with his views." She paused to take a few spoonfuls of soup, then continued, "We just have to accept our history and learn from it. Otherwise we are doomed to repeat it, as the proverb goes."
"But why did it have to happen in the first place? Why couldn't people have tried to stop things before it got all out of hand?"
"Things happen for a reason, Severus. As for the specific case with Hitler, he was charismatic enough to get most of the German population to blame the Jews for their problems, and then turned on others he also considered to be 'subhuman'. Britian and France weren't interested in getting into another war, so they did nothing to stop Germany until he invaded Poland and they realized he was going too far. Anyway, while I do wish I had never undergone the Holocaust, I also feel that it has made me a stronger person. Which is why I am not afraid to say Voldemort's name. I only say 'You-Know-Who' out of consideration to other people, who are scared of the name. After what the Nazis put me through, there is little I can't handle."
I kept my mouth shut, as I didn't know what to say to that, and I had absolutely no idea as to the reason why my father had to be an abusive bastard to me or why the Marauders, minus Lupin, had to bully me. Well, other than the 'reasons' that I existed and could do magic, that is. I suppose it had made me a stronger person in some respects, but it just showed me that I had nobody I could really depend upon, especially with my mother dead and Lily ending the friendship. Even though Mrs. Petrov was nice and told me that I could come to her, I didn't know her well enough to do so. Still, she had been a good employer to my mother and kept my family from starving. She couldn't exactly afford to pay high wages and so made up for it by providing her employees with a large lunch, and giving them the plentiful leftovers to take home with them. There had always been enough for me to have a decent dinner.
Mrs. Petrov regarded me silently for a few minutes as she ate her chicken sandwich. Finally she spoke once more, "Never give up hope, Severus. You are young and very talented, and even if you feel now that the world is against you, you still have a future ahead of you. Your mother would not want you to give up, would she? I was heartbroken when my mother died, but I knew she would not want me to give up and become a Musselman, which is a term that people in the camps used to call those that had given up all will to live. The same was true for Lise when her mother died, and the two of us comforted each other and got through it all."
"But you had your best friend with you," I pointed out. "Mine ended the friendship after the stupid mistake I made."
"You still aren't alone in the world, Severus," returned Mrs. Petrov. "My husband and I care about you, and not just because you're my apprentice or that your mother worked for me. My son and daughters also care, as well as the Romanovs. Our homes are always open to you and you may come to us for anything."
"Thank you, Mrs. Petrov," I said quietly. She smiled and patted me on the arm, then proceeded to finish her soup and take her dirty dishes to the sink.
"All right, Severus, why don't you go back to the lab and start working on a Pepper-Up Potion? I'll join you in a few minutes once I've cleaned the dishes. Scourgify!" The last was directed at the dishes in the sink, which magically cleaned themselves in a blink of an eye. I went downstairs as Mrs. Petrov began putting the dishes away.
As I prepared the ingredients necessary for the Pepper-Up Potion, I thought over what Mrs. Petrov had told me. I was grateful that she seemed to genuinely care for me, and amazed that she had survived such horrors. While I didn't know much about the Holocaust, I knew enough to know that the concentration camps had been awful places, and what she had said implied that they were even worse than I thought. My life had never been a completely wonderful one, but other than the time when Black tricked me into going down the passageway the Whomping Willow concealed, I had never been in any situation where I could very well die.
At four o'clock I was dimissed from my duties and I went upstairs to my room to get started on my summer homework. To my surprise, there was a journal on the desk, this one with dark blue covers and a magical lock that could only be opened by tapping your wand on it and saying a password. An accompanying note was from Mrs. Petrov, who explained how to set and change a password and that she found it helpful to write down her thoughts and feelings and perhaps it would do the same for me. After some thought, I set the password as "dittany" and then spent the next half hour writing it in it. It did turn out to be helpful, and with the lock, I could be sure that nobody else would be able to read my private ramblings.
After that, I got started on my Transfiguration homework, and worked until a few minutes before six, when I Flooed over to the Romanov house for dinner with the Petrovs and Sarah. I privately thanked Mrs. Petrov for the journal, who beamed and said that it was nothing.
Supper was very good, and Mrs. Romanov gave second and third helpings of everything. After, I was allowed to help clear the table, but was excused from having to help wash or dry the dishes. Like Mrs. Petrov, Mr. and Mrs. Romanov told me that I was free to come to them if I needed someone to talk to about anything. They also gave me permission to borrow books, both Muggle and magical, from their large collection. I thanked them and ended up borrowing a book.
When I returned to the apothecary later that evening, I read the book until ten o'clock. At that point, I brushed my teeth and went to bed, wishing that my family had been like the Petrovs and Romanovs.