The nightmare persisted, and Severus didn't know what to do.
He lay on his back, on his thin, lumpy little mattress on the floor of the attic at Spinner's End. The low, exposed rafters loomed over him, prison wardens. Guardians of Hell.
His eye throbbed dully behind the white gauze bandages magically sealed over his face. His skin was clammy and cold.
He had dozed off for a while. The angle of the sun had moved through the single small window cut into the angled roof. There were no longer shouts or banging noises coming from downstairs.
Severus could almost feel the tension of the post-fight sullen silence that often pulsed between his parents when they were forced to remain under the same roof after a fight.
He curled morosely onto his side, hiding under his ratty old blanket.
What was he going to do?
If this was hell, so be it. He deserved to suffer through any measure of pain, after the mistakes he had made. He might as well live the worst parts of his life over and over again in a futile act of penance.
If this wasn't some eternal torment of the afterlife, though, that meant that either he was crazy, he was dreaming, or he was a time-traveller.
If he was crazy, he was in no position to judge his own sanity or lack thereof. He might as well act as if he was still sane, until someone noticed otherwise and intervened. If he was dreaming, then nothing he said or did was of any consequence. He might as well act as if he was awake. If he was a time-traveller, though, then the fabric of reality as Severus knew it was in very real danger of unravelling.
Things had already changed. Severus had not visited St. Mungos at the age of nine, in his original life. He had not walked around Cokeworth with a bandaged eye for at least a week. His parents had not fought over Severus' medical bills. He hadn't been privy to the information of the accident at his father's work.
So, Severus faced a dilemma. Should he act on his new knowledge and circumstances, or should he pretend that nothing had changed? If he tried to force the universe to mold itself back into the shape he remembered, would it rebel against him? Would he do more harm than good?
He didn't know.
Last time around, Severus had been unaware of the circumstances behind his father's volatility. Last time around, Severus hadn't cost his father the galleons needed for a healer's visit. Last time around, Severus had been unaware of the extent to which his parents struggled to put food on the table.
Should Severus do something about it?
He could forage for food in the forest out back. He could fish in the nearby stream. He could look for odd jobs. Maybe get a paper route? Mow lawns?
He could help.
But he hadn't helped, last time.
But that medical bill hadn't been an issue, last time.
Severus knew things that he had not known last time.
His parents knew that he knew about the accident at the factory, this time around.
If he behaved as he did last time around, if he deliberately ignored that which he had been ignorant of, his parents would react differently. They would react to his intentions, not just his actions.
Severus stared at the exposed attic rafters in his little room. There was very little insulation, up here. It would be miserably hot this summer, and dangerously cold when winter came.
He could tack up bits of cardboard, egg cartons, and discarded insulation from construction sites to make it a bit more bearable. Would such a small change matter? What if Severus grabbed the exact piece of cardboard that a homeless person had used as bedding last life? Used as a panhandling sign? What if that homeless person had to spend an extra five minutes searching for cardboard? What if that delay put him on a different street corner? Put him in the path of a drunk driver? What if that homeless man died, when he had originally pulled his life together, and started a family? What if he'd had a child that had been destined to change the world?
On the flip side, though, what if Severus' eye infection weakened his immune system to the point that the lack of insulation in his room made him sick? Made him miss a day of school, or miss his first meeting with Lily? What if he got pneumonia and died? What would happen to the timeline, then?
He could not possibly account for every change and predict the consequences of his actions to that degree.
So, should he bother to try?
His own life didn't matter much, in the grand scale of things, but he had touched the lives of a lot of people who did matter. Would Lily Evans and James Potter fall in love, make love, and conceive Harry Potter if Severus' life played out differently? Would the Dark Lord learn about the prophesy? Would he target the Potters if he didn't? Would he still hand baby Harry Potter the power to destroy him?
He couldn't take that chance, could he?
He couldn't keep the minutiae straight. He knew that. The big things though. The Potters. Dumbledore. The Dark Lord. Those things were too important to change. He would have to try to keep those anchors in the timeline in place, and hope the different ripples around them were too small to make much difference.
He could do that.
He could offer his first best friend up to his erstwhile childhood bully so they could fall in love and get murdered together at the opportune moment… right?
He had enough blood on his hands already, what was a little more?
He could sell his soul all over again for the opportunity to point a sadistic madman at the woman he loved. It was only fitting that his forearm matched his soul, Marked by death and darkness.
Maybe Severus should be in hell.
It would be safer for everyone else if he was, but he couldn't take that chance.
He scoffed bitterly. He was becoming Albus, willing to destroy lives to keep destiny on track for the 'greater good'.
He was a monster. He needed to be a monster.
He could do this.
He could work to protect the big events, the ones that had to happen, even if the specifics of them changed, and he could give himself the freedom to do little things to better his own life, in the meantime.
He wouldn't seek Lily out until his eye was healed. She had been so excited to learn that she was a witch, and of all of the magical promise that the wizarding world held. Severus didn't want to taint that first impression with an unexplainable magical malady. She deserved that childhood wonder and joy, naïve as it was.
Hopefully the bandage could come off in a week.
In the meantime, Severus would look for food and work. He was no herbologist, but he had enough knowledge of both magical and mundane plants to ensure that he wouldn't poison himself, and he might be able to find what he needed to make a few rudimentary potions. That would certainly be a comfort.
He would also need to avoid his father. If Tobias was failing to process his trauma and grief, he'd be looking to take it out on Severus and Eileen.
Severus was not hero enough to stand between his father and mother. Eileen was a big girl. She was the one who had chosen this life. Severus hadn't had that choice.
Although… technically he had the choice now, didn't he? He couldn't live independently, running away before he was old enough to rely on his magic would be monumentally stupid, but he could get the muggle authorities involved. They would probably either get Tobias arrested, or Severus sent to live somewhere else.
But no.
If the charges didn't stick, Tobias would be vindictive, and if Severus was sent to a group home with adults that feared or hated magic, or who were abusive in their own right, or who lived too far away for him to maintain contact with Lily… it wasn't worth the risk.
Better the devil he knew.
He could handle Tobias.
Maybe he could handle Tobias.
Adult Severus' default method of glaring problems into submission would only get child Severus beaten up. He would need to remember who he was, where he was.
When he was.
He was getting a headache.
Begrudgingly, he pulled himself out of bed and dressed himself in the most tattered if his clothing.
Go to the forest. Look for food and potions ingredients. Avoid Tobias.
It was a solid plan.
He'd have to stick close to the house, for the first day or two, to ensure he didn't pass out with a fever in the middle of nowhere or, more embarrassingly, get lost. It had been thirty years since he'd last explored these woods, after all.
Plan in mind, Severus crept down the ladder stairs and out the back door.
He could see Eileen in the kitchen, ignoring her own silent tears as she scrubbed at dishes with a sullen ferocity.
Had Severus slept through supper? He hadn't eaten at all yet, since waking up in this nightmare. Well… except for the lollipop.
Begging for food was more trouble than it was worth.
Severus was pretty sure he could still find that little wild orchard that grew sour apples just across the creek. A couple of those would tide him over, and he could hide a few more in his room for a few days, in case his Tobias lingered around the house while the factory was shut down.
He found a narrow stretch of the creek, and hopped over it, scanning the banks for potion ingredients as he went. There wasn't much here, but perhaps down by the fishing hole he'd have better luck.
The trees started close to the creek bank, but were sparse for the first fifty feet or so before they thickened into a proper forest.
Severus found a handful of edible mushrooms, and made note of a cluster of poisonous ones… for future emergencies.
He noticed a couple promising small game trails, and decided to look for some wire thin enough to make into traps.
If he managed to catch a rabbit, he could not only use it for food, but also tan the hide, and make the feet into keychains. Muggles found such 'lucky' charms trendy in this time period, didn't they?
And for the pelts, if he managed to save enough before Hogwarts started, he could buy a cheap cloak, and line the inside with furs to stay warm.
He did not fancy shivering through another Scotland winter underdressed.
There were some herbs growing in a small clearing, used for both cooking and potions, and he managed to dig out some roots, as well.
The sun was getting low in the sky, the forest floor already deep in shadows, by the time he found the wild orchard.
The apples were a little underripe, yet, but they wouldn't hurt him to eat, just be overly crunchy and sour, so he stuffed his pockets with them, and hurried back home.
He could barely see the creek by the time he made it back, having to jump haphazardly in the darkness. He avoided falling into the cold water, but it was a close thing.
He hadn't taken the time to eat any apples in the forest, as he raced against daylight, and was trembling with hunger and exhaustion by the time he made it back to his ramshackle childhood home.
His mother saw him enter through the back door, and hastily gestured for him to be quiet and join her in the kitchen.
She shoved half of a sandwich and a plastic cup of water into his hands and shooed him upstairs.
He resisted long enough to transfer his mushrooms, a couple apples, and the other ingredients that couldn't be used in potions into their angrily rumbling refrigerator.
Eileen knew too much about potions to risk showing her everything he'd found. Even though Tobias would have no reason to suspect that the mundane plants contained magical properties, Eileen, in her paranoia, might throw them out regardless and Severus was not willing to take that chance.
Eileen was functional for the time being, but there was no telling how long that would last. Severus needed to be prepared for the next time one of her deep depressions hit.
Taking his little half sandwich, water, and hidden stash of goods, Severus climbed back up into his attic room.
He ate the sandwich and two under ripe apples quickly, and then crawled back under his threadbare covers to sleep.