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He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. He was happy. It was his birthday, and for the first time in weeks Sev sneaked away from home. His mum was busy in the kitchen and his father was sleeping on the couch so no one saw Sev picking up the keys and opening the door just enough for his body to pass through. He chose a new path, not the usual to his school, not the one to visit grandpa, and not the one to the grocery store. He'd never gone to east side, crossing the river, so it was time to explore that area. He was alone, and free, and happy. Then, he found it.
It was beautiful. The most beautiful place he ever saw. Not that he had seen lots of places, but it was there, and it was only his. Maybe an adult would look at the little park and see nothing but an overly grown patch of grass and broken playground toys, but Sev knew better with all his newly acquired seven years old's knowledge.
There was a pair of swings, a see-saw, two rusty slides and an even rustier jungle gym, and beyond a small creek, perched on a big tree, was a wooden tree house. It was beautiful, and he was the only one there. He made a plan to play on every toy, but in the end, the only fun he had was on the swing (the see-saw was impossible, the jungle gym was too hard with the missing parts, and the slide was way too cold). So he went over the small creek and up the tree house.
"STOP THAT NOW!" There was a high-pitched scream that made Sev jump. He must've been dozed off. The tree house was cosy with a rug and a pillow, and he'd decided to have a nap before playing a little more. His nap plans were destroyed by the voice. "GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT." It was a girl, obviously, but not one from his school, he though.
"Oh, but Tuney, it's so nice! Come on, try it!" The second voice was another girl he didn't knew, but she wasn't screaming, in fact her voice was very pretty. Sev got up slowly, and went to the window to try and see what they were doing. The girls were very different from each other: one blonde, one ginger. One smiling brightly, one pouting. One standing heavily on the ground, hands on hips, looking just like his mum when he got in trouble, and the other was flying. Literally flying.
He saw her the moment she was up on the swing, on the highest point, and from there she jumped. But she didn't fell. No, she was suspended in the sky, and so high that he imagined that she could see all Cokeworth from there. She flew like a bird for seconds before going down slowly and gracefully, as though she was a red leaf falling on autumn. "I SAID STOP DOING IT! You're going to get hurt and then mum will blame me for not looking after you!" Said the blond girl, Tuney, he though. But the Red Leaf girl was just laughing. Now that both girls were on the floor, Sev could see that, even though they were really different, they were a lot alike too. Sisters? He always wanted a sister.
"It's totally safe, Tuney. I like flying." Said the Red one, still with a big smile on her face. When he looked at Tuney, he saw fear and jealousy becoming disgust. Just the same face his father make at him sometimes, so when Tuney spoke, he already knew what she would say.
"Normal people don't fly, Lily. Only freaks do that kind of stuff!" She said with more hatred that he was expecting from a little girl like her. "I'm going home, you're better doing the same soon." And with that she went away. Not back towards the river where he lived, but more east, away from the mill, where the posh kids from his school said they were from. His envy was rapidly overlapped by excitement when he remembered the things he just saw the other sister doing. He saw the way Red Leaf - Lily, maybe - looked after what Tuney said, and he knew how that felt. She will be happy soon!
"You are a Witch!" He said from his window up the tree house. And got a jumpy reaction from the girl, but she masked that very fast and glared at him.
"Well, that's not a nice thing to say!"
"But it is!" He was so excited to tell her everything. He could have a friend! Going down the ladder and getting right in front of her, he smiled. "My mum is one too"
"You can't call your mum names! Don't you have any decency?" She was getting very upset by the conversation, but Sev was thinking it was all very, very funny.
"Witches and Wizards are great things to be," He said grinning. "I am not offending you or mum. One day I'll be a great wizard!" Now, the annoyed face was turning to something between pity and amusement.
"Oh, you're crazy! I am sorry. Tuney was right, and-"
"Just look!" He said laughing. There was one bright red lock of hair on Lily's face and instead of brushing it off with his hand, he pointed one finger at it and made it go flying behind her head. She tried to focus on the hair crossing her eyes but when she looked at him again, she was smiling.
And just like that, he made a friend.
Lily was on cloud nine when she discovered that today was his birthday. "Mine is the end of this month, we are practically twins!" She had said and, as that was enough reason, made him go back home, change clothes and bring a picnic blanket.
It was harder to get out a second time, since now Father was awake, but his mum was down at the basement and when Sev saw his father too engrossed at the telly, he made his escape again. When he got back at the park, Lily was already there with a basket, sitting on the grass and playing with a daisy. "If I had known we would be sitting on the floor, I'd not had bothered" He said poking at the blanket.But it was a great excuse to bring her some books.
They sat together -on the blanket- for hours, he told her everything he knew about Hogwarts, pointing at the pictures from the books, and they made plans for their time there. They were the same age! She told him about her school and why she wasn't at the same school as Sev (Tuney didn't like the uniform there). They ate biscuits and some berries Lily brought. And he was happy. It was the first time he let himself just be. No wizarding secrets, like when he was with the boys from his school. No pretending he didn't exist, like when he was at home. It was just Sev. And Lily.
They met again. Every day for the rest of the winter hols, and every saturday morning when the term started. Sev met Lily's family on March. Her father was nothing like his, Mr. Evans liked smiles and music, and he was happy to 'finally have a boy's time' and have someone to share his tastes for cars. Sev really liked cars. And football. It was the only thing his father and Lily's had in common, and Sev was not mad about it at all.
April came and went with not much of a change, besides the 'satuday's encounter' now was every day after school instead. Ms. Evans asked to meet the Snapes about three times before giving up. It wasn't that he was ashamed of his parents, but more that his mother hated everyone but his father, and his father hated everyone. So his "Um... I met a girl at the park, and we're friends now... Do you guys want to know her?" was only acknowledge by his father smirking and muttering something about someone named Sissy. He didn't try asking again.
By the end of May, Sev was spending more time at the Evans' house than his own, and even with Tuney, he was way happier that way. It was in one of those days that Lily make his old dark blue shirt bright yellow with a smiling sun right in front of her parents (just because he said that her pink shirt with rainbows were childish). Mr and Ms Evans looked from the yellow shirt at Lily, then at Sev, then at Lily again. So they know. "That's fine. I can do strange stuff too."
"YOU DO?" Came in unison.
Then life was even lighter. Turns out the Evans were really afraid that Sev could find out about their daughter, Lily was afraid of talking about Sev's secret to her parents (she promissed, with a cross motion on her chest, that she would tell no other about his magic), and Sev was afraid that the Evans were just like his father and would start to hate their daughter for her magic. So with that niffler out of the bag, they started to talk openly about magic, much to Tuney's displeasure.
That was the same day his father got fired from the Mill.
They were far from rich before, and now having three meals every day were getting rarer and rarer. His father was getting angrier and drinking more. His mum was also getting angrier. So he was at home only to sleep these days. And when the summer holiday started, he spent at the park, or by the creek, or on his tree house, or at the Evans'. Mostly at the Evans'. They took him to the cinema, and the mall, and to a small trip to London once.
"I've been meaning to tell you something, Sev." They were sprawled under the tree, making leaves spin and flowers dance. Their feet were in the creek, the water fresh against the hot air of the summer.
"Yes," He took his eyes off the tea he was drinking.
"Well, I think there is something wrong in your home. I don't know, maybe it's haunted."
"What?" He was expecting complains about the amount of sugar in his tea, not this. Definitely not this.
"Yes. I think it is haunted. You say your dad is always mad, that must be why." He felt heat going through his face, and looked away. Not this. They never talked about his family. The Evans were his real family. At least on his heart. Even Tuney.
"My father is just a muggle. He hates magic. There are things moving and flying there, but no ghost, just me." He had though about that before, it was mostly his fault that Father was angry all the time now.
"My dad is a 'muggle' too, but when you explain Hogwarts to him, he liked a lot. He likes you a lot"
That made him smile. Mr Evans - please call me Henry - was one of his favourite persons in the whole world. He was a historian and so smart, he knew everything and loved to teach Sev whenever he asked how something was done, or when something was created.
"I think you should come live with us, we could travel with mum and dad we're going to India this year. Think Sev! It would be great!" She was beaming at him, and he did think about it. To have a dad that liked his company beyond watching football, and didn't yell at him or call him names, or trow things at him. To have a mum that like him and bake thing only for him, and teach him how to braid hair so he could play with the sisters. His sisters? Could he have that? Maybe, one day, his older self would thought he was insane to even consider that, but he was still seven and that was his dream, so he smiled at Lily and nodded before hugging her.
The Evans looked at between them questionetely when Lily asked - like one asks to get one more cookie after dinner - if, please, Sev could live with them. They had to have their theories about the boy's family and why he got happy and excited with the smallest show of affection, but to ask a way out? That was maybe too much to acept without questions. So questions they made. They already knew about the magic, so explaing the hatred, and the fights, and the screaming, and the Mill, and the drinking, and his father passing out at the pub, and his mother blaming him for doing magic, and the trowing things, and him hiding in the closet, that was easy. So they agreed to have Sev for the week, and see how things go from there. They talked about child care and government, but he had no idea what that was about.
After the best week of his life, where even Tuney was starting to like him and the fights were more like squabs, he went back to his house. The Evans wanted him to talk to his parents and have an agreement for becoming his guardians. When he step inside his house, though, he knew something was off.
He heard crying, man's crying, and that more than anything made him bolt at the bedroom to find his father holding his mother. She saw him first and looked at him like he was really the ghost he said he wasn't.
"Severus?" That made his father turn and look at him too.
"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN YOU LITTLE FREAK?" Sev was so confused that he didn't react, just said he was spending the summer with the Evans' just across the river, to the east. Where his parents sad because they were missing him? Him? But no, Father called him that word, so it couldn't be that.
"Oh Sev, why did you went there and don't said anything, we though... we..." She hugged him, but his eyes were glued on his father. Did him missed Sev too?
One more tear went down the man's face before he hugged Sev too. And that was the moment he knew that even with all the problems, even when it got worse, that was his family. And that was the reason he put up with the fighting, the screaming, the trowing things, the calling names, and after some time the list also got the beating, and then the heavy beating, and then the starving and the beating, and the blaming, and the grieving. Then will be the guit and the protecting. Protecting mothers from fathers, father from Them, protecting himself, and friends and boys from Him, and the secrets, and more guit, and more grieving. And he kept putting up with everything.
At the last day of summer, Lily told him that she was going to finish her muggle education at the same school as him. They never talked about his family, and why he had given up at beign an Evans. But she got a way for him to cope. "If the problem is their screams, just scream louder." It was silly and he could never scream at his father's face, but he could at their park, just the two of them.
That day Lily told him to lie down in the middle of the overly grown grass and weeds and just scream. And he did. He was screaming hard and loud eyes closed until his troat started to hurt. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes and saw hers throug the dirt, and the blood, and the round glasses. He was happy.