Severus was almost at the bottom of the stairs when the door slammed. He froze immediately, listening for the heavy footsteps that would mean his father was home. Sure enough, he could hear the stomping of work boots heading into the kitchen. Definitely drunk, and probably angry. Severus could tell a lot from the sound of footsteps. Also, if Tobias was going into the kitchen then he hadn't bought chips on his way home- but there was no food in the house. It was Friday, which was pay day, and there wouldn't be anything to eat until his mother went to the shop tomorrow.

Hardly daring to breathe, Severus began to creep back upstairs. He moved carefully, placing each foot gently on the step and transferring his weight gently so as not to make a sound.

Downstairs, cupboards slammed, the fridge opened and closed. A large body crashed against a countertop, followed by loud cursing. More cupboards slammed, more cursing. A crash. Panicking, Severus sped up, but he forgot to skip the third stair from the top, and he flinched as it creaked loudly. He froze, even as his heart accelerated into his throat.

"Boy!" Angry footsteps crossed the kitchen. "What're you doing up there?"

Severus began to scramble up the stairs, even though he had nowhere to hide. His bedroom held only a thin mattress and a tiny set of drawers. The footsteps had reached the hall, and Severus felt his heart speed up again- and then suddenly, his feet left the ground and he legs were left scrabbling at empty air. A moment of utter panic, and then he was falling into the attic- falling up. The attic had been missing a hatch for years, and somehow he had flown through it.

For a few moments he hugged his knees, too terrified to be confused. His father crashed along the landing, swearing and threatening to make Severus regret this. He crept a bit further away from the hatch, and then hunched there silently. He hardly dared to breathe. Below him, he heard his father go into his room. Drawers opened and slammed shut.

Eventually, his father gave up and stormed downstairs. "Eileen! What's the fucking point of having a wife if there's never any food in the house?"

His mother shouted back. "If you actually brought some bloody money home maybe there would be!" More crashing, more shouting. Severus knew that they had probably both been drinking all afternoon. Besides being pay day, Friday also meant an early finish at the mill. Now he had got over the initial shock of it, he was quite glad to be in the attic. Surely no-one would think to find him here.

He huddled into a ball, covered his ears, and tried to lose himself in a familiar fantasy in which he really belonged to another family. This family never fought. They could always afford to buy his school uniforms new and clean them properly, so the other children at school didn't call him names or push him around. And they always had food- sometimes even fancy stuff, like yogurts in tubes and little cups of fruit in syrup. The attic floor was hard and his stomach was aching with hunger, but imagining something better helped.

Eventually he must have fallen asleep, because he woke up to find the house quiet. He was cold, hungry and his side ached where he'd been lying on it. His parents had stopped arguing, though. They hadn't left the landing light on, and an orangey glow from the bulb above the stairs lit the attic just enough for Severus to make out the silhouettes of his surroundings. Further back, he could see a dark shape.

Severus paused to make sure that he definitely couldn't hear his parents, then cautiously crawled across the attic towards it. He didn't understand what he saw. It looked like a carved wooden trunk, an old one. It looked like it might appear in one of the period dramas his mother sometimes watched- something a child might have taken out of London during the Blitz, or to a quaint boarding school at the turn of the century. Not something he could see his parents owning. Perhaps the previous owner of the house had left it here? But that didn't make sense either- nobody in Spinner's End could afford boarding school.

The trunk was locked, but the key had been left in the latch. For a moment, fear warred with curiosity. But no-one was around, and no-one even knew he could get up here, so curiosity won. Perhaps it contained treasure, or valuable antiques, and they could sell it and move out of Spinner's End. His parents might not fight so much if they had money. Severus turned the key slowly, licking his lips nervously. When nothing happened, he carefully lifted the lid and pushed it back, as quietly as possible. The old hinges creaked slightly and he froze, his heart beating in his throat. But the house was still quiet.

Inside was a messy tangle of fabric, mostly black. Severus pulled one item out and unfolded it. It was a strange outfit: somewhere between a dressing gown and a dress, made of black fabric with green lining. It was even worse than the clothes he already owned. Severus pulled out more clothes, all the same odd type of garment but in a few different sizes. One of them was even pink, with lace edging and an ugly floral print.

As he pulled out yet another dress-thing, he caught sight of a book cover underneath. Not a normal type of book, like the ones they had in school. It was bound in leather, and like the trunk it seemed more like it belonged in a costume drama than real life Spinner's End. Severus finished pulling out the clothes and began to reach for the books. He laid the first three books on the floor, towards the hatch so they caught enough light to read the titles.

The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 3 – Miranda Goshawk

One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi - Phyllida Spore

Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions

Severus stared down at them, frowning. These clearly weren't real books. Why were they here? Some kind of joke? He opened the closest of the three books and opened it on a random page. It held a large diagram of a plant with tufty leaves and a root that looked like a baby. "Mandrake, or Mandagora, is a plant which grows naturally in the Mediterranean. It is a powerful restorative, and used in a number of healing draughts." Severus checked a few more pages, but they were all the same: pictures of plants that he was sure he'd never seen in Spinner's End, and long paragraphs describing their use in 'potion making'. He checked the back, hoping for clues, but there were none. He felt a creeping sense of disappointment- whatever this was, he surely couldn't sell it for enough to become rich.

He had a look at the other two books, finding them similarly useless. Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions was full of made up illnesses with names like Dragon Pox and Vanishing Sickness. The Standard Book of Spells was even worse, an endless series words and 'wand movements' for apparent spells that did a wide variety of things. In the universe where these books belonged, you could remove boils, change breakfast bowls into hedgehogs and make spoiled milk fresh again- all with the wave of a wand. It sounded quite nice, and Severus thought that he might incorporate magic into his fantasy family. After all, if they didn't exist anyway there was no harm in imagining they could do magic, was there?

He turned back to the chest and began sorting through the rest of the books, hoping to find the original storybook which had inspired all of them. But they all had the same weird names, the same earnest descriptions of spells and potions and animals which couldn't possibly exist. Charm Your Own Cheese. Magicke Moste Evile. Spellman's Syllabary. There was a pointed hat too- maybe all the dresses were costumes, like they wore at Star Trek conventions? A small cauldron filled with paper bags containing the oddest things: dried frog legs, beetles, creepily twisted plant roots.

And at the bottom of the trunk, a tightly wrapped cylinder of newspaper. Severus pulled it out and unwrapped it carefully. Inside were two pieces of wood, each smooth at one end and broken at the other. It looked like a stick which had been snapped in half, and out of one end glinted a strand of silver. Severus reached out a hand to touch it- and one of the pictures in the newspaper moved. He jerked backwards, startled, and knocked over a stack of heavy books with a crash.

Severus froze, praying that his parents were asleep enough- drunk enough- to have not heard anything. But as he sat there, dead still, listening to the beating of his heart in the otherwise quiet house, his eyes drifted to the newspaper again. It hadn't been a trick of the light- the man in the picture was waving. But that wasn't possible- newsprint didn't move. It was then that he fully realised how weird it was that he was even up there at all- there was no way he could have jumped. He was the least athletic boy in school, small and weak and sickly. When they'd done high jump in PE, he hadn't even gotten over the first jump.

Then he heard his mother's footsteps on the stairs, and flinched. "Hello? Is anyone up there?" She sounded almost afraid.

His father's heavy footsteps emerged from the bedroom. Oh no. Severus had woken all of them up. "Why the hell would anyone be in the attic at bloody six on a Saturday morning?"

"I-I don't know. I thought I heard noises. Never mind."

"Stupid bitch," his father said. And both footsteps disappeared again, his father back to bed and his mother back to the sofa.

Severus let out the breath he had been holding. When they were both gone, he pulled out A History of Magical Theory, the book that seemed most likely to give an overview of what was happening and took it as close to the hatch as he dared- where the light was better- and began to read. It was hard to understand what was going on. The book contained a lot of words and concepts he didn't understand. Wand movements, made up words (or maybe they were foreign?), ancient theories of numerology. There was no chapter explaining why a picture could move.

Hours later, when his parents had both gone out again, Severus was too hungry and thirsty to stay upstairs any longer. He tucked as many books as he could into the pocket of his shirt, and lowered the ladder. It was heavy and impossible to move quietly, instead slipping from his grasp and falling down with a rattle. Too loud. Severus hastily clambered down the ladder, only to see his mother halfway up the stairs. She looked furious. He froze, and in a moment she was upon him.

"What the hell were you doing?" She shook him roughly, then pushed him to the ground to slide the ladder back into the attic. "How dare you pry into what isn't yours?"

"I-I didn't mean to," Severus stammered. "Sorry."

"I don't care what you meant." She slapped him hard, leaving a patch of stinging fire on the side of his face. Severus felt tears springing up behind his eyes, and tried to swallow them down. "How did you get up there, anyway?" She looked at him with disdain. "I wouldn't have thought you had the strength to get the ladder down."

"I-I'm not really sure," Severus admitted. "I kind of- flew." He paused, staring down at the grimy carpet, waiting for her disdain. Obviously you didn't fly. You're as stupid as your school reports say you are.

"I suppose I need to tell you sooner or later. You're a wizard."

"Wizards aren't real."

She snorted. "Go on then. Give me your clever explanation for getting up to the attic."

"I don't know," Severus admitted, staring at the carpet again.

"Well then."

"But then- how am I a wizard?" He could sense her losing interest, but his mind was buzzing with questions.

"Help me put this ladder back," she said. Severus obeyed, taking one side of the ladder and trying to give it a push. It was heavy, and he could barely lift it even with her help. Somehow, between the two of them, they managed to get slid back into the attic.

"How?" Severus asked, more insistently. He knew he was pushing his luck, that he was asking for another slap, but he had to know.

"I am- was- a witch."

"You're a witch?"

"Don't repeat things. It makes you sound even stupider than you are." She curled her lip into a sneer. "I'm going out. Don't break anything."

"Can I come?" Severus was buzzing with questions. But why are you in Spinner's End? Why do you never do magic? Can't you make us rich? But she was already leaving- down the stairs and out the door, slamming it behind her. Heart beating fast, Severus hid his new books under his mattress by the wall, wishing he had a better place for them, and crept downstairs for a glass of water.

He spent the next few weeks reading everything he could find from the trunk in the attic, trying to answer the questions his mother had left him with. He learnt about wizarding schools- the one in Britain was called Hogwarts, and students started the September after they turned 11 years old. (Only two years left!) Children started exhibiting uncontrolled magic anywhere between five and ten years old, which worried him briefly until he remembered all the strange things that had happened around in. He devoured a book called Hogwarts: A History, poring over the images of the school and it's grounds: children on broomsticks, common rooms with roaring fires, ghosts and suits of armour and paintings that talked. When he had read that one so many times he knew it by heart, he did the same with the rest of the books. He learnt every spell he could, from cheese making to giving someone boils, even though he couldn't do any of them without a wand and he didn't have one. And so the spring passed.

It was that summer that the second amazing thing happened: he met a girl who was a witch.

The house in Spinner's End was freezing cold in winter and baking hot in summer. Severus got into the habit of spending time in the parks on the nicer side of Cokeworth. He didn't like the one in Spinner's End- the ground was strewn with rubbish and there was always a chance he might run into the other boys from his school.

There was something different about her from the first moment he saw her, almost a glow around her. Maybe it was a kind of magic he hadn't learnt about yet, some manifestation of fate. Or maybe it was simply that he quickly realised that if he had a sister in his fantasy family, it would be this girl. The first time he saw her, she and her sister were playing on the slide. Lily's evident joy in this activity was enough to light up the whole playground. When they finally left, the brightness of the summer's day seemed to fade as she left the park. Her departure left Severus with a new feeling in his chest. It was the way he felt when one of his parents had brought home chips from the takeaway, but eaten them all without leaving any for him- like hunger, but somehow even emptier.

He came back to that park more often after that, spending as much time as he could hunched in the bush nearest the playground. It was close enough to the swings that he could see the girl up close and even hear her talk to her sister. He learnt a lot about her, hiding there- her name was Lily, the other girl was her sister Petunia, and they both went to the nicer school in Cokesworth. Her favourite ice cream flavour was strawberry, her favourite book was Charlotte's Web, and she liked tomatoes but not in sandwiches. Severus had never had ice cream, but he decided that if he ever did, strawberry would be his favourite too.

One day, Lily was on the swings, with a yellow t-shirt. She was swinging high enough that the chain on the swing was almost parallel with the ground when she reached the watched with narrowed eyes, not swinging but simply twisting on her swing. "Lily! You're going too high! You'll hurt yourself!" Severus didn't think that Petunia was a very good sister. If Lily was his sister he'd let her swing as high as she liked.

And then, as she reached the top on another swing, Lily fell. Her sister gasped and jumped up. Severus, too, felt his heart stop. For the longest second he had ever experienced, she plummeted head first towards the asphalt under the playground- and then she just… Stopped. Or at least, the fall slowed enough that she was able to right herself and drift gently to the ground.

Severus felt a flutter of excitement, then a flood. She was like him! He had half come to his feet to run out and tell her so, when Petunia strode over and grabbed the red-haired girl's hand. "Lily! What did I tell you?"

"Tuney, I'm fine." Lily brushed herself off and gave Petunia a bright smile. But Tuney wasn't convinced, pulling Lily towards the gate of the park. Severus watched their retreating backs in disappointment.

She did more magic when they came back after that- jumping from the swings on purpose, bringing flowers to life, making the leaves dance in little whirlwinds. Severus was jealous, because while he'd been reading all he could he hadn't done any since that day he'd found himself in the attic. He daydreamed about introducing himself to her, telling her he was a wizard too. She didn't seem to know about Hogwarts, or any of it. But part of him was scared- she was so perfect, what could she ever want to do with him?

He deliberated about it all summer, and as he watched he liked Petunia less and less. She wasn't always very nice to Lily, and she wasn't always very nice about people who lived in Spinner's End. Severus didn't like Spinner's End either, but Petunia's dislike was different. She had no idea what it was to live there, hadn't been beaten up by the bigger boys in school there or had to shiver in one of the cramped and poorly insulated houses. She just thought people who lived there were common.

It was his dislike of Petunia that eventually forced him to reveal himself. Petunia was asking, for the thousandth time, how Lily could do the things she did. It was stupid, just like all her questions. "How do you do that?"

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Severus said, pushing through the hedge to emerge in the playground.

Lily jumped, and spun to face him. There was surprise on her face, and a hint of fear- although she stood her ground, unlike her sister. Severus felt both their eyes on him, keenly aware of how tatty his clothes were next to the two of them.

"What's obvious?" Lily asked.

"I know what you are."

"What do you mean?" A note of hostility had entered her voice, and she glanced back nervously at Petunia.

Severus felt more of his confidence draining away. He was stupid, just like his mother always told him. And more than anything, he wished he had a coat that fit. "You're… you're a witch."

"That's not a very nice thing to say to somebody!" She turned and marched back to her sister, clearly planning to leave the park.

"No!" Panic was rising in Severus's chest now, his face heating and his throat tightening. He hurried after, feeling his father's old coat flapping around him. What if he had scared her away from the park for good? "You are! You are a witch." Words were catching in his throat, threatening to choke him. "I've been watching you for a while." Her eyes narrowed. She was taking this the wrong way. "But there's nothing wrong with that! My mum's one, and I'm a wizard." He tried to straighten his posture, wishing that he was taller. He wished that he looked more impressive.

Petunia laughed, cutting straight through him. "Wizard!" Her laugh made it clear what she thought of that idea. I know who you are. You're that Snape boy. They live down in Spinner's End, by the river." There was no mistaking the derision in her voice. "Why have you been spying on us?"

"Haven't been spying." His face was too hot. He felt a surge of fury towards the other muggle girl, standing here looking tidy and well-fed and malevolent. "Wouldn't spy on you anyway, you're a muggle!"

Her face darkened still further, although she couldn't have known what the word meant. She grabbed Lily's arm and marched her away towards the playground gate. "Lily, come on, we're leaving!"

Severus stood and watched them go. He was furious with himself for showing himself like that. He was even more furious with Lily's sister. What if she never came back, and he never saw her again- or at least not until Hogwarts, where she would be a permanent reminder of what he'd come from? Once they were out of sight, he slunk back into his bush and hugged his knees. He didn't really want to be there, but it was better than going home.

He tried to lose himself in his thoughts, imagining what it would be like once he finally got to Hogwarts- but for once, that didn't work. All he could see was the look on Lily's face when he emerged. He was scared that when he finally went to Hogwarts, everyone would look at him like that.

But to his surprise, Lily came back. "Hello?" It was hours later, and the hot sun was getting low on the horizon.

Severus looked up, peering through the thick foliage towards her. Had she come to confront him about spying on her? But if that was the case, why wasn't Petunia there?

She cast her eyes nervously around the playground. "Are you still here?" she called. She swallowed nervously, glanced towards his hiding place, then began to walk towards it.

Severus hastily pulled his coat back on and scrambled out of his bush. His heart was beating rapidly. "I'm here."

"Is it really true? I'm a witch?"

She was looking at Severus expectantly and he felt a spreading warmth in his chest. "Yes."

She quickly picked one of the daisies and held it out to him. "Here. Show me."

Hesitantly, Severus held out his hand and took the flower from her, cupping his hands around it. "I've never done this before," he admitted. He concentrated his hardest on the flower, begging it to do the opening and closing that Lily's had done. And to his immense relief, it did.

Lily smiled, and it was radiant. "I knew it! I knew it must be magic, but nobody would believe me." "I have loads of questions for you! Why don't we all know about magic, if it's real?"

"The wizards keep it secret. You're not allowed to go telling muggles about it, or doing magic where they can see it. There are laws."

Lily frowned slightly. "You called Tuney a muggle. What does it mean?"

"It's the word- our word- for someone without magic."

"Is it meant to sound like a bad thing? Like calling someone stupid?"

Severus hesitated. He thought of all the muggles he knew: Petunia, everyone at his muggle school, and his father. But he knew enough to be certain that it was safer to lie. "No."

"It sounds kind of mean. Muggle." She rolled the word around on her tongue. "Mug-gle. Maybe because he sounds a bit like calling someone a mug."

Severus didn't have anything to say to that, so he just shrugged helplessly.

"But if it's not mean to be, I suppose that's fine. My family will get used to it. Why do wizards hide from muggles?"

"It's complicated, I s'pose. Muggles used to fear us. Tried to burn us."

"But they wouldn't do that now."

"Doesn't mean they'd be good with it. My parents-" He broke off, not wanting to tell her that his mother's things were hidden, unused, in the attic.

"No, tell me! What about your parents?"

Severus shrugged. "Nothing. They fight a lot."

"About magic?"

Severus wished he hadn't brought it up. "Stuff. It doesn't matter."

She forced him to meet her eyes. "It's OK. I won't tell, I promise."

For a moment, Severus desperately wanted to tell her all of it. The shouting. The endless hunger. The feeling of terror whenever a key turned in the front door, because he never knew what mood his parents would be in. But he didn't want that to be what she saw when she looked at him. He wrenched his gaze away from hers. "It's nothing."

She glanced down at the pink watch on her wrist. "I have to go for dinner now. Will you be here tomorrow?"

"Of course."

She smiled. "Good. I have loads more questions. I'm Lily, by the way."

"Severus."

"See you tomorrow!" She turned and walked away. Severus watched her go until she was out of sight, then walked back to Spinner's End with a new lightness inside his chest.

He woke the next morning with the same lightness in his chest, until it occurred to him that maybe she wouldn't want to see him again. What if Petunia talked her out of it, or her parents wouldn't let her go? Or what if she'd lied when she said she believed him, and she was laughing at him right now? A tight feeling of anxiety built in his chest as he walked across Cokeworth to the park where he'd met her. His mood rose again when he saw Lily waiting for him on the swing. She asked him questions all morning, and then invited him to come to her house for lunch.

Lily's house was somehow exactly what Severus had expected: as tidy and safe and nice as she was. All the other houses on her street were the same: neatly mown lawns, tidy flower beds with neat flowers, and immaculately trimmed conifers. Severus had always wished desperately to live in a house like that. Lily's house was the exception, but in a good way: the lawn was still tidy, but the flowerbeds overflowed with colourful blooms and a gnarled apple tree leant over the fence, its lower branches just slightly above Severus's head.

Lily noticed him staring. "We do prune it! It just wants to grow over the pavement for some reason."

"No, it's… lovely." He hesitated. "I don't think anyone in Spinner's End has a tree like that. Or all these flowers."

"Oh!" Lily said. "Well, my dad will be pleased to hear that, he loves that tree. But sometimes people think it looks messy."

Before Severus could ask any more questions, there was a call from inside the house. "Lily! Are you going to bring your friend in?"

Lily took his arm, and only then did Severus realise he had frozen at the raised voice. "Come on," she said, pulling him indoors.

The house was nice indoors too, bright and airy and nice-smelling. As Lily pulled him into the kitchen, both Petunia and her mother turned to them. Petunia was viewing him with the same undisguised scorn as the day before. The way her mother looked at him was worse: it was pity, and it made his skin crawl. Maybe Severus would have pulled back and run back to where he belonged, but Lily kept a steadying hand on his arm.

"Sorry about the mess!" Mrs Evans said, in an overly cheerful voice. There was no mess that Severus could see. "Petunia and I have been baking."

Severus fixed his eyes on the tiled floor. "'s fine."

"Severus, isn't it?"

"Yes." Severus started down at the floor tiles. They were a pale cream, and despite Lily's mother apologising for the mess, they were spotless. They made him feel very out of place.

"I'm Lily's mum, Donna."

Severus nodded awkwardly.

"Severus has been telling me about being a wizard, mum!" Lily burst out excitedly. "There's a wizard school, called Hogwarts. They have a whole parallel world, you know. With a bank and everything!"

"Is that so?" Mrs Evans said. She had gone to the kitchen counter and begun making sandwiches. Severus wondered why she wasn't more excited to learn of this new world. Maybe muggles were just naturally not very curious. "Severus, do you eat ham and cheese?"

"Yes," Severus said.

"The bank is run by goblins," Lily continued happily. "Did you know goblins were real, mum?"

Petunia made a disparaging noise.

"Petunia, don't make fun of your sister," Mrs Evans said. "No, I didn't know that, Lily. What do the goblins look like?"

"They're short and pale, with long fingers. And there have been lots of goblin rebellions-"

"Mum, this is so stupid!" Petunia interrupted, rolling her eyes dramatically. "Do I have to listen to this?"

"Tuney, let your sister have her game."

With a flood of hot rage, Severus realised why Mrs Evanswas so unconcerned to learn about the Wizarding World. "It's not a game!" he and Lily said at the same time.

"Petunia's seen what I can do, jumping off the swings and with the flowers! How can you not believe us?"

Mrs Evanshad finished making sandwiches now. She placed a plate in front of each of them, with a neatly cut ham and cheese sandwich, a little yoghurt and an odd fruit that Severus hadn't seen before- it was brown and fuzzy on the outside, cut in half to reveal bright green innards. Despite his anger, his stomach grumbled as he realised how hungry he was. He took a bite of his sandwich, intending to match Lily and Petunia's dainty bites, but before he realised what he was doing it was all gone. It felt like the best thing he'd ever tasted, apart from the fruit-thing, whose skin was tough and itched his throat as he swallowed.

Lily and Petunia were eating slowly, still arguing with their mother about whether magic was real. For the first time, Mrs Evans seemed to be listening to Lily properly.

"I'll show you!" Lily announced, getting up and running outside. Petunia glared after her.

Severus missed her immediately, and he was now left staring at the two muggles. There were a few beats of silence.

"You aren't supposed to eat the skin on a kiwi fruit," Petunia said snidely.

Severus felt his face go hot again.

"Petunia, shush. It's alright, the skin won't do you any harm," she added to Severus. "What's you favourite subject at school?"

"I hate school," Severus said.

Petunia snorted. "That figures."

Mrs Evans ignored her this time. "I used to teach in the school in Spinner's End. It's a tough place to grow up."

"But not anymore?" Severus felt a growing jealousy in the pit of his stomach.

"No. I wanted to stay home while the girls were growing up." The jealousy grew stronger: nobody in Spinner's End could choose whether they wanted to work or not.

But at that moment Lily reappeared with a daisy from the lawn. "Look," she said. She showed the flower to her mother, then closed her hand over it. When she opened it again, the petals pulsed open and shut, as if moving to music only they could hear.

Mrs Evans's eyes widened. "Wow. Can I look at it?" Lily handed the flower over, and her mother examined it closely- presumably searching for some kind of hidden mechanism. Finding none, she handed it back. "That's very impressive. How did you do it?"

"I told you! Magic!" Lily said happily. And she went back to eating her lunch.