Chapter Text
“Put more pressure on the pestle,” his mother snapped as she stirred the potion.
Severus did as she bade, leaning most of his scrawny body over the mortar in an attempt to crush through the keratinous porcupine quills. A bead of sweat dripped down his temple and he wished, not for the first time, that he was older, stronger, taller. At only seven years old, Severus was little more than a twig, easily batted to the side when he became a nuisance. Things wouldn’t be that way when he got older, he was sure. And then he would be able to brew the Draught of Peace entirely by himself. His mother wouldn’t have to lift a finger.
He was proud to be helping her now. He had watched her make the potion so many times. He would stay up long past nightfall, waiting for the sound of the door slamming to know that his father was heading to his nightshift at the factory. They would make the potion then, careful to clean and hide all of the supplies under the sink before his father returned.
As Severus worked, he peered between the lank black strands curtaining his face, mesmerized as the potion’s color shifted from turquoise to purple in an instant. His mother didn’t like to be watched while she did magic, but Severus couldn’t help himself. He snapped his eyes back to the mortar before she caught him, and he placed the pestle over one stubborn end of a quill.
Anticipation steadily rose in Severus’ gut with each color change of the potion. He knew better than to say a word while they were brewing, having learned his lesson long ago from that mistake, but after they finished… that was almost as good as when they were brewing itself. His stomach fluttered as he mentally recited the new questions that he’d thought of since last week, saved up just for today. After that first dose of Peace, his mother would answer almost any question he posed until it put her to sleep. She told him stories about Hogwarts that made him long for it, like he longed to know that girl with the red hair that lived across the train tracks. Any hint of information about their world was worth any cut or burn he got while brewing.
The scratching sound of pencil over rough newspaper was familiar to him, comforting. His mother was always quick with the arithmantic calculations to determine how much water to add to the crushed porcupine quills based on the age of the porcupine they had been harvested from. Severus had plans to save that scrap of newspaper before she used it as kindling, hoping to decipher how she did it. Then he could sneak a look at the next owl delivery and check the information on the bottle. If he proved he had learned how to do the calculations, she would have to teach him more.
These plans swirled in his mind as his mother set down the pencil, a deep crease between her brows as her gray eyes jumped between symbols. The paper slipped from between her hands, floating perilously close to the cauldron’s flame. Severus snatched it away before it could burn, pushing it to the side as his mother’s gaze turned on him.
If she thought his action unusual, she didn’t care, because then she held out a water dropper to him in one thin, shaking hand.
“Forty-three drops,” she ordered, words clipped short as if with the silver knife of hers that he so longed to use. He was only ever allowed to chop chicory with the iron knife when they made arnica paste for bruises.
Severus’ eyes widened. “I—I can add them?” he asked, a trickle of fear running cold down his spine, dampening his anticipation. What if he miscounted? He had messed up the potion only once before, but his mother had spent the next few days nearly bed-bound, shivers and convulsions wracking her body while sweat made her skin sticky. Severus had tried to cook and wash the laundry in her stead, but he hadn’t escaped Tobias’ wrath for his failures.
“I said so, didn’t I?” She pushed the dropper more firmly towards him. Severus grabbed it and the bottle before her unsteady hands could drop them. Her eyes softened. “Count carefully.”
Severus swallowed, a deep breath expanding his prominent ribs. He had finally outgrown his last shirt, so the occasional droplet from the simmering potion splashed on his bare skin, leaving behind an angry red speck. He ignored it. Severus added the drops to the porcupine quills, mouthing the numbers to himself so he wouldn’t lose track.
The joy he felt when she gave him a terse nod, approving of his work, was unparalleled. The grin stretched his cheeks as he stirred the quills and water with a glass rod, ensuring it was fully mixed before picking up the dropper once more.
“Seven drops now,” his mother said, but Severus didn’t need the reminder. He’d memorized every step to this potion, dreamed about it at times.
He bent over the cauldron, rising up on his knees to reach better. Each droplet pooled at the end of the glass dropper, brown and thick, before falling into the viscous liquid below. On the seventh drop the potion turned a brilliant, pure white.
Severus looked up, eager to see his mother’s reaction. A slight twitch of her thin lips betrayed her pride in him, but despite its rarity, Severus barely saw it.
The figure that stood behind his mother stole his attention instead. A woman he had never seen before stared silently at him. She was dark-skinned with soft-looking curls that framed a heart-shaped face. Her sunshine-yellow blouse and blue jeans contrasted with the grey wall behind her. Wide brown eyes stared at Severus, looking almost as shocked as he felt.
Then she disappeared, as silently as she had come, there one second and gone the next.
Severus flinched, small fingers squeezing the bulb of the dropper reflexively. A thick drop eked out, clinging to the dispenser. Severus tried to get the bottle under it in time, but before he could, the brown liquid fell into the potion below.
Pure white corrupted into a sickly, mustard-yellow.
~
Severus furiously scribbled on the newspaper he had snuck from the kindling pile, trying to hold his pencil nub at the perfect angle that would make it work. It must have worn down too far, he decided with a sigh. It would survive a couple more whittlings, it was just a matter of sneaking a kitchen knife to do it with. Now was a good time anyway, with his father at work. He shifted to the edge of his mattress and his heart stopped in his chest. The nub dropped from his fingers in shock as he bolted to his feet.
The woman was dressed the same as she had been when she first appeared months before. Severus had almost convinced himself those few seconds had been only a dream, though the pain he had endured for ruining his mother’s potion had felt very real.
She stared at him with warm brown eyes.
“What are you doing here?” Severus demanded, stepping away from his ragged pile of blankets. She had appeared between him and the door, but maybe he could edge around her…
And do what? His mother was in one of her sleeps. She wouldn’t wake for a few more hours no matter how hard Severus tried.
“I’m not sure,” the woman replied. She glanced around Severus’ small room, the tattered piles of newspaper that he had been able to scurry away, filling each margin with scribbles. They wouldn’t escape their fate as kindling in the winter, but in the heat of summer, his parents didn’t seem to care that he used them to practice writing and maths. He still hadn’t figured out arithmancy, though. “I was just—” her gaze flickered back to him, brows furrowing suddenly. “You’re hurt.”
Severus didn’t need to look down to feel the bruise that mottled his side, a tender ache that worsened with each movement he took. The last of their arnica paste had gone bad a while ago. Or maybe she was talking about his left hand, wrapped with a damp dish towel to soothe the blisters on his fingers. That had been his own, careless mistake when trying to use the stove.
“Who are you?” Severus hissed, uninjured hand balling into a fist at his side, ready to fight if it came down to it. She didn’t exactly look like she meant him harm, but nobody did until it was too late.
Her head shook minutely, but Severus suddenly didn’t care about her answer, because he knew. “You’re a witch, you have to be,” he stated, looking her up and down. Muggles couldn’t appear and disappear instantly. His mother never had either, come to think of it, but she had mentioned something called apparition in one of her more talkative post-potion moods. “What do you want?”
“Nothing,” she hurried to say. “I wasn’t trying to come here.” The witch worried her lower lip with her teeth. “How old are you?”
Severus took a cautious step around her, angling for the door. “Why should I tell you?”
She took a step forward and Severus’ heart lurched as he scrambled for the other side of the room. He found himself on the same wall as the door now, but on the wrong side. He would have to pass within arm’s reach of her to get out. Was he faster than her? His breaths came in too fast, head swirling and light-headed. He felt like he might fall over if he tried to outrun her. He hadn’t eaten today.
An odd expression crossed her features. “I’m not going to hurt you, Sna—Severus.” She bent down and scanned the title page of the newspaper he’d been using, not picking it up. “So you’re… seven years old now?”
“Eight,” Severus corrected, then cursed himself for even answering. But she knew his name, what else did she know? A sudden thought occurred to him, and a glowing, fragile thing sprung up in his chest. He straightened, a rush of hope beginning to offset fear. “Are you from Hogwarts? Are they letting me in early?”
Her lips turned downwards and her eyebrows creased, something that Severus didn’t have a name for shining in her eyes. He didn’t think he liked that expression. It made him feel small and stupid, like a stray cat she couldn’t feed because it would just keep coming back. “I'm so sorry. No. It’s hard to explain, but I’m not really here at all.”
That ominous statement did nothing except to burst the bubble that had risen in his throat. To his own horror, fire prickled at the backs of his eyeballs, a stinging pressure that rivaled that in his fingertips. He needed to go before the tears fell. He’d have to run, try to wake his mother; maybe it would work this time.
Before he reached the door, the woman was gone.
~
Severus dreaded the weekends. With his father home all the time, there was no brewing, no discussions about Hogwarts houses or gobstones. His mother would haunt the house like a wraith, trying to avoid Tobias’ ire, and Severus would stay holed up in his room until Monday came again. Unfortunately, the bathroom sat squarely between the living room and his parent’s room. Severus could only hold his bladder for so long, and there was no telling what hours his father would be awake.
At least there was no shouting; that was as good a sign as any that Tobias might have fallen into a drunken slumber already.
Severus turned the handle to his door fully before slowly opening it, just a crack to slip his thin body through. Any wider and the hinges would have creaked. He tip-toed across the carpet, heart in his throat as he passed the open door to his parent’s room, moving as quickly as he dared.
“Boy!” Tobias bellowed, sending an electric shock down Severus’ spine. He tried to run but a large hand pulled him back by his shirt. “Eileen, fuck is this?”
A creak of the linoleum heralded his mother’s appearance from the kitchen. She barely filled up half the door-frame, and the way her shoulders caved in on themselves made her appear impossibly smaller.
Severus stopped struggling as soon as his mother appeared, knowing that it would only redirect his father’s rage to her. Tobias always chose the easiest target.
“You let him steal one of my shirts?” the man demanded, pulling the offending garment straight up. The neckline dug into Severus’ throat, strangling him for a moment as he tried to cling onto it, lifting him onto his toes. Tobias gave it a shake and Severus fell backwards, landing on his tailbone as cool air attacked his bare skin.
“It's winter,” Eileen explained quietly. Her voice trembled like her hands did when the potions’ ingredients were late to come. “He has to wear something.”
“Then give him one of yours.” Tobias scowled, tossing the shirt Severus had just worn into the bedroom. Severus had liked it; it was so large that he could curl up his knees and tuck them underneath the shirt when he slept, adding another layer of warmth to the parts that his pants didn’t cover. The soft material hadn’t irritated the welts on his back, either, something Severus had been afraid of as touching them hurt when they were fresh.
His father picked up a shirt at random from the floor, a soft lavender blouse. It hit Severus in the face. He scrambled to pull it on, not wanting to give Tobias reason to decide that no shirt was better. Smocking decorated the bodice, meant to highlight breasts that Severus didn’t have. It wasn’t as baggy as his father’s shirt had been. He might not be able to wear it after suffering his father’s belt.
“Suits him,” Tobias snorted, turning back to the bed, sinking into it as he swiped an open beer bottle off the nightstand. “Looks like a wench anyway.”
Severus’ face burned, something heavy and wriggling settling in his stomach. It wasn’t the first time his father had expressed that opinion. But Eileen liked his hair, said it was traditional for pureblood men to keep their hair long. Severus was proud of it.
Scrambling to his feet, he moved towards the bathroom, hoping to hide before the water blurring his vision fell; father hated tears. Bright, smeared colors stopped him. He wiped the back of his fist over his eyes, blinking rapidly.
The witch from before wore something different now, a light blue blouse with long sleeves and a black skirt that fell to her knees. Behind her, Severus saw the shadow of his mother as she turned back into the kitchen.
How had mother not noticed? Could only Severus see the intruder? She was standing directly between Eileen and Severus…
The witch’s eyes were wide and glistening. Severus stared at her, trying to decide whether to call his mother back, when the loud sound of the TV turning on in his parent’s bedroom startled him into movement. He ran into the bathroom, closing the door and twisting the lock.
He stayed inside until he heard Tobias’ snores through the walls. By the time he emerged, the strange witch was gone.
~
A small library sat on the corner of Victoria Lane and Eddings Street. Severus wasn’t allowed to go inside, of course. Strictly speaking, Severus wasn’t supposed to let muggles see him at all, but he’d been breaking that rule for as long as he could remember and none of the muggles he met did anything worse than his father did. Muggles were stupid and crude, like his mother said, but no more dangerous than staying at home.
The library was different. Severus dared to walk on the streets sometimes now, and he’d begun to understand that there was a part of the city where he should not go. Spinner’s End was safe; people there ignored his existence, either knowing about him because of his father or simply not caring at all. The immediate surroundings were also mostly safe, as long as he was quick and quiet.
Victoria Lane was not safe. There, people stared. A woman with two children around Severus’ age, one recognizable as the girl with stunning red hair that Severus desperately wanted to touch, had seen him and immediately pulled the trio in the opposite direction. He couldn’t hear what she said, but both of the girls turned their heads to stare at him even as they were being pulled away.
The second time Severus had wandered onto Victoria Lane, a police officer had called out to him, saying something about ‘truancy’, whatever that was. Severus had gotten away easily, but he didn’t go back after that.
The library sat directly in the middle between safety and danger, Eddings and Victoria. The pine forest that surrounded the eastern half of the city stopped right behind the library, affording Severus a good place to sit and watch without being seen. Most of the people he saw were finely dressed older couples or young parents with loud, smiling children. The workers wore brass name tags and shined, pointy-toed shoes. Severus couldn’t always put his finger on the differences between him and those who visited the library, but he knew they existed. More than being muggles, there was something different in the way these people acted, in the way they spoke and dressed, that meant he shouldn’t be here.
But oh, the books. Severus knew how to read now. He was slow, but he had nothing else to do most days. His mother had hidden a few books in Severus’ dresser years ago and since his eighth holiday, when mum bought him Everything You Need to Teach Your Child to Read, he had taken to reading every night. At first he hadn’t been able to get through more than a few words without waiting for one of his mother’s post-potion moods to ask for help, but he had gotten better. Now he’d devoured all the books so many times he could recite much of them word-for-word, and the newspapers he snuck from the kindling pile only lasted him two nights.
Severus wanted more, desperately. He wanted to learn, wanted to lose himself in knowledge and the world beyond this shitty muggle town. But how to get it? He could ask for a book every holiday, but that was only one a year, if they even had the money for that. The shops around Spinner’s End didn’t have books, and most of the shopkeepers there knew to watch out for the small boy with quick hands. The library was an odd kind of bookstore since Severus saw people entering with books as often as they left with them, but it was the only place within walking distance. The problem was the people. There were too many, and they intimidated him more than he wanted to admit.
It took a week for Severus to notice the pattern. At closing time, the workers would flip the sign, shut the door, and turn off all but a single light. They would then go through a door and it would take them about a minute to reappear, exiting and locking the door behind them.
That minute was Severus’ chance. He started too far away and hesitated too long the first time. By the time he reached the entrance, the workers were already opening the door to come back out. He ducked behind a tree just in time, sweat running down his back despite the chill of the air, breath fogging in the November air. The next day, he was determined. He slid closer as the sun began to set, crouching down to hide behind the thickest part of a trunk. He had stolen before but this felt different, more dangerous.
The mystery witch appeared between him and the library’s brick wall. She wore an olive-green skirt with a long-sleeved button-up blouse, curls plaited over her shoulder. Her dark skin took on warm tones from the sunset, lacking a coat despite the chill. Her shoes were shiny like the worker’s, but rounded at the toe instead of pointed. This seemed important for some reason. Severus saw in their reflection when the workers flicked off the main lights.
It was time.
The instant the door closed behind the workers, Severus ran, ignoring the witch even as he passed her. He didn’t have time to look around or choose what book he wanted. He whipped the door open, darted inside, and grabbed the closest book to him, one that stood on an island in front of the door. He knew from his time watching that the sign above it said ‘Classics’.
Rushing back out, Severus made it with time to spare. The glass door at the entrance closed and he ducked to the side of the store seconds before the workers returned, none the wiser. The other witch was gone.
Exhilaration made his skin tingle, lightness overtaking the gnawing sensation in his stomach, Severus grinned down at his newest treasure, far more important than the ghostly witch that haunted him. He ran fingers reddened from cold over the glossy paper cover, which pulled back to reveal a harder cover underneath. Odd, but that meant more paper to write on, so Severus wouldn’t complain.
'The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe'. Those words were the largest on the cover, inscribed above a raven in flight, black and stark against the white background.
Severus greedily traced the bird with his fingertips, eager to gorge himself on the words within, to lose touch with his reality for however much time this book gave him. A splash of crimson smeared in droplets across the bottom of the cover like spilled blood, and trees devoid of leaves haunted the background with stark, bare branches.
In that moment, Severus knew that it wouldn't be enough. No matter how heavy this book, how many pages and words it contained, it would never be enough for him. He would want more, like he always did: more books, more food, more stories, more of the girl with the beautiful red hair.
Severus always wanted more.
But this desire was manageable. He clung to it, promising himself he'd return to the library the next day, steal as many books as he could before they caught onto him. This desire, unlike all the others, was one he could feed—and feed it, he would.