Life continued in a strange yet oddly familiar pattern over the last week for Severus. He foraged for potions ingredients, he set traps for rabbits and he fished. He roamed the neighborhood and offered his services for odd jobs. So far, he'd mowed a few lawns and weeded a couple gardens. He had earned enough to buy a big bag of flour he'd lugged home in an old, rusty red wagon he'd found abandoned in a ditch.
He had avoided the playground where he had originally met Lily. He had used his bandaged eye as an excuse to put off meeting her, but that wouldn't work any longer.
Today was the day the bandages were supposed to come off. He was nervous that it would still be infected, or that he'd gone blind. He knew his mother wouldn't dare take him to the healer again, no matter how bad it was, nor would she risk taking him to a muggle doctor.
Eileen was taking yet another nap today. The factory had opened back up, and she had crashed into a hard depression once Tobias was no longer looming over her. Severus would have to remember to be home early enough to cook tonight, or none of them would have anything to eat, and Tobias would get pissy.
Looking into the bathroom mirror, Severus braced himself for the worst, and peeled back the bandage. He kept the damaged eye closed, and leaned in close.
Tobias had shut off the water heater again, so Severus used cold water to wash the crusted puss from his lashes. The skin around his eye looked healthy enough, if a little discolored. Hopefully that would fade with time.
Now for the true test.
Opening his eye slowly so he could get used the light through the veil of his lashes, Severus looked at himself in the mirror.
Even with the precautions, his vision was a bright blur.
Severus panicked for a moment, before his eye adjusted.
Everything looked weird. He closed his good eye to confirm.
The vision in his left eye was a bit blurry, and the colors were dull, as if the world could not decide if it wanted to be normal or in black and white. He blinked hard a few times and tried again.
Still fuzzy and washed out.
Oh.
His left eye had changed color. That was odd.
It had lightened from black to golden yellow.
Severus swallowed hard; it looked like a human version of Nagini's eye.
His neck throbbed at the reminder of the giant snake. He could feel her fangs sinking into his flesh all over again, the venom coursing through him.
What could this possibly mean?
Severus had assumed that his eye infection was some form of side effect from being poisoned with Nagini's venom in the future, but that wouldn't change his eye. It wouldn't start to change him into her.
The healer had said there was temporal magic in his eye, along with dark magic. Nagini had been drenched in dark magic, to be sure. And he had possibly… maybe… he had better keep acting like he believed it… travelled back in time.
How were all of these things connected?
There were certain traditions that linked snakes to Seers, but Severus had always assumed those were superstitions, like muggle fortune tellers with long, sharp fingernails and a serpent draped across their shoulders. He had assumed it was aesthetic and nothing more.
Salazar Slytherin had not been a Seer, after all, and neither was the Dark Lord.
Neither had Severus ever heard of a Seer that was a parselmouth.
That being said, not every person who cast a serpent patronus or who became a snake animagus was a parselmouth. Snake affinity was broader than one particular skill.
Surely though, if Nagini had been a Seer, the Dark Lord would have known. He would have used her.
Severus stared at his nine-year-old face in the mirror.
His presence here and now was also temporal magic, but nothing he had ever heard of. Was that all that the healer had detected in him?
Severus reached up to hold his eyelid open, and froze.
He was glowing.
His reflection wasn't glowing. Mirror Severus looked normal, minus the oddly colored eye.
His actual arm, though, was limned in light. It pulsed softly, shimmering between purple and blue, with streaks of white dancing across the surface of his skin.
It was his aura.
Severus was stunned. He closed his injured eye, and the glowing vanished. He opened his eye, and it returned.
He could see magical auras. He was a bloody muggle fortune teller, after all.
To be fair, he only knew that he could see his own. He'd have to look at Eileen, or maybe Lily, before he could prove that he could see other people's magic, too.
Maybe he should go to the park today, just in case Lily was there.
He had spent the last week worrying about their second first meeting. It would be best to get it over with.
It didn't have to be perfect, it just needed to set the stage for Lily's curiosity about magic. The rest would work itself out.
Hopefully Lily would find his discolored eye cool rather than creepy. Should he pretend that it had always been that way?
No, he didn't want to start their friendship off with a lie.
If Lily became as close to him as last time, she would eventually see pictures of him as a baby, or hear Eileen mention his healer's visit, or possibly even overhear some local children gossiping about Severus' looks.
He would downplay the infection's magical nature to start with, though. No need to worry her over something so obscure.
He wished he had time to boil some water on the stove so he could take a bath, even though carrying a pot of scalding liquid that far was dangerous for his nine-year-old child's body. He wished Tobias would stop punishing Eileen and himself by shutting off the hot water under the guise of saving money.
Life would be so much easier if he could just use magic. He'd have to keep meditating on his growing magical core, to see if he could learn it well enough in flux to regain his moderate skills with wandless magic. Maybe seeing his own aura would help with that.
Today, though, he was dirty and unkempt. He had probably been greasy the last time he had met Lily too he supposed, so it really shouldn't matter.
Everything was going to be fine.
Running his fingers through his hair, Severus glared at his underwhelmingly sallow, thin, and grimy self. How had he ever managed to become friends with a girl like Lily Evans last time?
It beggared belief.
It was also an excuse. He had put this off long enough.
He needed to go to the park.
Lily might not even be there. If she was, he had years of friendship with her under his belt. This would be fine.
If anything, he had more social skills now than he had had originally.
Severus tiptoed out of the house and attempted to look casual as he walked to the nearly playground. He nodded politely to every muggle he passed, making an effort to appear responsible and friendly. None of them glowed, which wasn't surprising, given that they had no magic. He kept making himself jump whenever one of his arms swung into view as he walked. Being luminescent was going to take some getting used to.
He made mental notes of which houses to solicit for odd jobs as he went. It was a nice distraction, but left him feeling unprepared when the playground suddenly loomed before him.
Lily was there.
She wasn't floating off of the swings, like last time. This wasn't the same day. It would have to do, though. There was no way he could recreate the exact moment from his memory.
Severus would need to think of another way to bring up magic, and let Lily know that she was a witch.
He would just have to introduce himself and go from there.
He walked towards her and her sunflower aura, when something caught his eye.
He stopped short.
Petunia stepped out from behind the slide, and she was glowing.
Her aura wasn't as bright as Lily's, and it was a bogey-colored yellowish green, but it was there.
Petunia wasn't a muggle. She was a squib.
No wonder she resented Lily's magic so much. She must be able to sense it. Muggle-repelling charms didn't work on squibs the same way they worked on muggles.
Petunia had lived her whole life with something fantastical tangibly there but just out of reach.
The petty cow deserved it, but it was still tragic.
"Hey, you!" a painfully familiar voice rang out, full of righteous indignation.
Severus' head snapped up, watching in confusion and dread as Lily stalked over to him. She did not look happy.
"Stop staring at my sister, Perv."
Severus blinked.
Lily's aura was flashing angrily.
"What? No, I wasn't…"
Lily glared at him. "I saw you, didn't I?"
Severus' mind stuttered to a halt. He had been staring at Petunia's aura, not at her, but he couldn't exactly tell them that.
He needed to make Lily fall in love with magic, not associate it with creepy stalker boys making odd excuses.
And now he was staring at Lily. Great.
"I'm sorry," he said to Petunia, who looked as embarrassed as he was by Lily's outburst. "I didn't mean to be weird. I just like your… um, dress."
It was an ugly dress, but everything about Petunia was ugly, and neither scathing sarcasm nor intimidating glares would dig him out of this hole, so he was forced to get creative.
Petunia smiled at Severus like she just realised he was a diamond in a pile of glass chips, and smoothed down the front of her gown.
"Thanks! I made it myself. Well, mum helped me, but I picked out the pattern and the fabric."
Severus smiled at her and nodded enthusiastically.
Lily was not impressed. She positioned herself between Severus and her older sister. Ever the warrior, Severus could not help but admire her tenacity.
Severus might be trapped in the body of a tiny person, but Lily was even smaller than she was. To be honest, Petunia could probably take them both on and win, at this point in time.
Severus curled in on himself, attempting to make himself look contrite and pathetic. Lily had almost as much of a savior complex as her future son, and Severus needed to get onto the other side of it. As long as she registered him as a threat rather than a project to protect, he would be unable to nudge her decisions in the way that they needed to go.
"I was just hoping that you'd allow me to play with you. I don't really have anu friends, and you looked like you were having fun."
He kept his head down, and made a show of scuffing his too big second-hand shoe in the dirt.
Lily softened marginally, but did not move from her guard post in front of get sister.
Petunia looked annoyed. "Lily, be nice to the poor boy. Hey, what's your name, kid?"
"Severus." He stuck his hand out, and Petunia leaned over and around her sister to shake it.
"Don't mind her," Petunia said with a huff. "Lily just hates it when she's not the center of attention, for once."
"That's not true," Lily protested, glaring over her shoulder.
Petunia rolled her eyes.
This was going horribly. If Petunia decided to advocate for Severus while antagonizing her sister, Lily would dislike Severus out of spite.
That was why she had despised James Potter so hard, for so long. She had been upset with Black for bullying Severus on the Hogwarts Express, and had decided on the spot to hate James by proxy.
Potter, predictably, had reacted poorly to this, and had taken it out on Severus, convinced that it was all his fault.
"Whatever, Lils," Petunia said. "I'm tired of playing baby games anyways. Let's go home. See you around, Severus!"
Lily glared at Severus as if he was personally responsible for cutting short her fun, then bounded after her sister.
Severus was left standing alone in the middle of a playground like an idiot.
What just happened?