Wonderful chapter 14

The Tribe

Another of Severus' favorite places to visit was where an old woman sold silk scarves that women of the day would tie over their hair-dos to keep them from being ruined as they walked about. It was not the scarves that interested the boy naturally; it was the woman's pet that sat there with her. This was Ferris the Ferret. Unlike the previous owner, this lady didn't mind when the boy started to play with her pet. "Hello Ferris," Sev greeted as the rodent came forward for the scratch behind the ears that was on the way. "Hello Severus," the ferret greeted back.

"What no hello for me?" The scarf seller asked.

"Hello Mrs. Tangle."

"That 's better. Good morning Mr. Snape. Been keeping out of trouble?"

The boy was too busy picking up the ferret who was almost as long as he was tall. He sat and put the animal on his lap. He nodded to the old woman. He had become acquainted with both Mrs. Tangle and Ferris a while back when he had hid under her cart in an attempt to hide from the gang of boys who usually chased him about. Ferris had actually bitten the biggest of the boys who had tried to pull Severus out from under the cart. Mrs. Tangle did her part by then chasing them off by acting all crazy and shouting, "You boys get out of here."

After sitting with the ferret for a while, the boy asked the old woman, "If Ferris ever has babies, do you think I could have one?"

With a smile Tangle said, "Little Mister Snape, IF Ferris ever has babies, you certainly can have one." She never did bother to explain to the boy that Ferris was a boy and highly unlikely to have babies unless she found him a lady ferret to get busy with. As she had no plans to get a lady ferret, it wasn't likely.

"What you doing down here when there's travelers round the corner?"

"Travelers?"

"Some calls 'em gypsies, but they're not all gypsies."

"What's that?" Severus had never heard either of these words.

"They're people who travel in caravans, now a lot are just vans, but they do all manner of entertaining," Tangle explained. "I heard that there were some exceptional acrobats with this lot. They'll sing songs. Of course the hats will be out for donations. You might even get your fortune told by one."

"My fortune?" Sev said to himself. He wondered if these people might be from the wizarding world. If they were, how would the old muggle woman know about it? He was sure that despite her oddities, Mrs. Tangle was indeed a muggle and had not an ounce of magic to her.

"Round the corner you say?"

"Yep."

It was the ferret that warned the boy, "You be careful with that lot Severus."

The boy wanted to question Ferris, but he couldn't with Tangle sitting right there. He asked her instead. "Are they nice people?"

"Oh, don't let any rumors worry you, they're very nice people."

Severus trusted the old muggle for some reason. He put down the ferret and went to find these people he believed might be witches and wizards.

Round the corner was where an old loading dock for one of the factories used to be. It was still there, but the coming and going of hundreds of trucks a day had gone silent. It was just an empty lot now. For a few weeks it would not be empty, it would be where the city officials would allow this group of 'travelers' to settle in. They were there to do as Mrs. Tangle had said, to do all manner of entertaining. The police had told them if there were any trouble because of them, their 'arses' would be out of there before they could blink.

The hot top was crowded with old dilapidated cars, vans, and other manner of vehicles. Some even old fashioned wagon homes. Instead of being pulled by horses, they were hitched to trailers of flat beds. The modern vehicles made a perimeter surrounding the older ones that were arranged in a sort of village. In that village the local residents were going to buy hand made wares, get things repaired, listen to some music, but mostly go to the fortunetellers'. Severus was curious, but he noticed it was costing people fifty pence to get into the village. Maybe he could sneak in.

Being small helped sometimes. Sev was able to crawl right under one of the vans. Unfortunately, being small did not make him invisible. He was seen as he crawled out. The man who saw him grabbed the boy by the wrist.

"Think yer cleaver eh boy?"

"I didn't do nothing," Sev protested.

On closer examination of the boy, the man who had caught him said something in a language he didn't understand. The speaking of that language continued as the child was dragged towards a group of other people. An older Snape would have just stupefied the man and been done with, the little one could only hope for a moment when he could make a break for it. A woman came forth and addressed the boy in the same or a similar tongue that Snape still didn't understand. Finally someone asked him in English, "What family are you boy?"

"I don't have to tell you." Severus thought the man was just being nosey. The man was under the belief that this defiant little boy was one of them.

"Cheeky little nip," the man made a threatening gesture.

"You better let me go." Snape had been struggling and twisting to get loose from the original man who had never let go. "I'll bite you!"

"He'll bite me he says." The man laughed and lifted Severus off the ground by that fast held wrist. "Can't bite me now can ya."

More people spoke to the fraught boy in more dialects just as unintelligible as the last. In English again someone said, "No kid is that oblivious, he doesn't understand Shelta, other languages, or any of the codes. He's not one of ours."

The man holding Severus aloft looked into the boy's face. "Could have sworn he was one of those Roms. Obsidian hair and eyes - - "

"Fool," a woman said. "That kid is as English as a crumpet."

"What we gonna' do with him?"

"Do with him?"

"He snuck in."

"So get the lousy fifty pence and let him go."

Snape's captor probed into the pockets of the boy's jeans to find they were quite empty. He looked back at the woman.

"Just let him go."

The man put Severus back on the ground and let go of him. He then made a puffing noise and stomped a foot on the ground as if he were trying to scare off some wondering cat. It worked. Snape jumped in surprise, then fled into the crowd. The boy did not stop moving, but he was trying to digest what had just happened. He was trying to figure out if he wanted to see what the rest of these people were up to, or if he wanted to run as far away as he could.

It happened that after wondering around the mock village for a while, Sev was looking at familiar faces, the old man and his grandson from the river. They each had a rope of eels, at least six on each. They held them up for another man to see. "I'll take three," the man said. He turned to a woman to say, "Three should be enough?"

The woman nodded before confirming, "Three Mr. Snapeivitsky."

Severus' jaw gaped. What had that woman called that old man who spoke very bad English? Snapeivitsky? 'No, it can't be,' Snape thought. As far as he knew, he was indeed as English as a crumpet. His mother's family had been among the first students at Hogwarts. He began to wonder about his father's family. Nothing was ever mentioned about them. 'Impossible.' Still Severus found that he could not ignore what he had just heard. Determined to find out more about these two, he decide to follow them.

tbc