Better days (Severus)

Setting: Cokeworth, June 1967

It was the second week into a heatwave, and all of Cokeworth had taken to their back gardens during the hours of the day. Windows had been thrown open in an attempt to get a draught running through the town houses, but the air was stiflingly still, sticky and extremely warm. Tobias tapped the thermometer hanging up on the brickwork outside, and it was showing the high-80s.

“Eileen! You been messing around with this?!” he barked, and heard her faint reply from inside the kitchen. She was busy putting the shopping away into the cupboards. Severus was due back soon from school, as he was very capable of walking back by himself now. The dinner was mostly for him, served around five o’clock.

Tobias had some annual leave to take up, so they had some plans of going to the seaside at the weekend. He wasn’t really in the coastal escape mood though: he was still frowning at the thermometer, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, suspicious that his wife had been using her abnormal gift to tamper with it. They had argued the day before while the boy was at school, and the day before that as well. He was fed up with it now. It was better that she stayed indoors and did whatever she did while he roamed the garden, talking over the fence to the neighbours.

@Severus Snape

Severus wasn't having the greatest of times at school; his uniform itched and burned his skin as a result of the friction caused by the heat. Small bouts of uncontrollable magic gave him brief reprieves from the sweat that drenched his small body. It was insufferable! How could anybody enjoy this kind of weather? He almost preferred the cold as it allowed him to bundle up in as many layers as possible. That felt like a nice, warm hug. This didn't.

On the way home from school, Severus had been tempted to jump into a body of water for relief. He refrained from it. He didn't want to upset his parents for getting his school uniform drenched beyond what it absorbed from layers of sweat. Uniforms were one of the biggest burdens of expenses to deal with. They had to make the nicest pieces last as long as possible.

He returned home as quickly as possible to put his schoolbag into his room, greet his mum, and then go out to the backyard for any air he could get. That had become his after-school routine since the start of the heatwave. "Da, I'm home!" he yelled out from his room. Severus rushed to get off his uniform and switch to clothes that was more agreeable to the blistering sun.

@Tobias Snape

Hearing that little voice, Tobias spun around on the spot pretending to look for something around him, then looked up and feigned a deep, chest-clutching shock at the sight of him at the window. “Ahhhh! Where’d you come from?!” It was a Dad’s job to be goofy. “Clean up and get down here! I’ve got a surprise for yer!”

Lowering his neck, his eyes fell dead onto his wife’s from the kitchen window. She was smiling at him. Despite the heat of their arguments over the past couple of days, he smiled back. Awaiting the arrival of his son, Tobias went to the shed at the bottom of the garden. Until recently, it was where the bathroom was. Now the small shack had been knocked down and the shed stood in its place. They had to get with the twentieth century after all and have the bathroom joined into the house. Tobias was lucky that he’d met and befriended builders down the Shepherd & Dog.

He started pulling something from the shed. It looked like a big, rubber sheet, but was actually a paddling pool - currently deflated.

@Severus Snape

Smiling ear to ear, Severus waved at his father excitedly. A surprise?! A surprise! It wasn't very often that his parents were able to surprise him with anything. When they did, it was done strategically. They had to make the most of what income they did earn. It didn't change all that much for Severus. He dreamt often of a better life for his family. What if they lived on the other side of the river? What if they were able to afford a pet? A cat would be cute! A dog would do a better job at protecting what they did have...

Finally! No more itchy uniforms until the next school day! He and his skin felt free! There was no breeze in the air, but there might as well have been one from how happy he felt to be back home. It was impossible to keep the heat down in a classroom with all of the talking that had to be done. It was torturous! As he did timetables, he'd dream about what it'd be like if the entire family was magical. Severus would never admit it, but he had overheard his parents' fights and arguments plenty of times. It saddened him whenever his parents were unhappy. He was young enough to remain being idealistic.

Before getting out to the backyard, he made a stop to the kitchen to receive a hug and a kiss from his mum. She was so lovely! Although she didn't do as much as his classmates' mums, Severus adored her. He loved the little shows of magic she'd show him when dad was out of the house. He felt special knowing that maybe he had a bit of magic in him too. Now what was that about a surprise?

He dashed over to the backyard and witnessed his dad dragging out a big, rubbery thing. "Da! Da! What's that?!"

@Tobias Snape

Pulling it out and tossing it into the centre of the grass, he took a fag packet out from the pocket of his shorts and tapped the end, sliding one of them out. He lit it and stood back, seeing Sev exit from the kitchen door and out onto the paving stones. They were cracked and loose and had been for a fair few years, but those sorts of slabs cost a lot of money. At least the shed was fairly inexpensive as the wood was from old sleepers.

“Well, take a look at it,” he gestured at a heap of deflated material on the grass, and could see his son’s point. It didn’t really look like anything. “Tell yer what. You tell me what yer did at school, and I’ll set it up for yer. Then you can tell me what it is as soon as y’know.”

He’d borrowed a foot pump from a neighbour, and grabbed it out from the shed. There were a few dead rats in there, so he promptly kicked the door shut again. With the cigarette clutched between his lips, he began setting up the pump. Behind him, through the wire fence separating the Snapes from Wallaces, Nancy was pulling faces at Severus while her Mother relaxed in a deck chair.

@Severus Snape

"Okay!" Hmm, where to begin with school? Other than the yucky, sweaty uniform, there wasn't a whole lot he could come up with. Oh wait! "We've been learning multiplication! I know how to multiply twelve by twelve!" Maths wasn't his favorite subject, but he still did the best he could. After all, he wanted his classmates to appreciate his smarts and not taunt him for being of a lower class. Why did class have to matter so much?

Spotting Nancy, Severus looked at her somewhat fearfully. Something about his neighbor frightened him; she always seemed to want the attention of their male classmates during recess. He wasn't entertained by it one bit. He didn't mind girls as friends, but it couldn't be anything more than that as they have cooties!

"Da! Is that a..." Severus almost couldn't believe it. "A pool?!?!?!!!!" Excitedly, he jumped around the yard unable to control himself from squealing out of happiness. Usually, if they went to a pool, it was outside of Cokeworth and as a very special treat. Now they could have one in their own yard!

"This is the best surprise ever, da!" He said that about every surprise he received. Severus almost went up to hug him.

@Tobias Snape

"Oh yeah? I think the Mitchell's down the road are tryin'a do that too..." Multiplication indeed. The family kept growing and growing: all the Mitchell kids were spilling out onto the streets at this point. He was sure the eldest had just become a parent himself too.

Briefly seeing the change in his son's expression, Tobias followed his line of sight and turned around. Nancy gasped, flushed at being caught by a grown up, and fled back inside the house. He turned back, pausing briefly to have a puff of cigarette, then continued pumping up the pool. Soon it was beginning to take shape.

"It is?!" he pretended to be stunned by the sight of the pool. "Damn it. I thought it was a ferris wheel. Oh well. I suppose it's a pool, then." He grinned at his lad and his excitement. There was something very special about seeing the glee of your own child, and Tobias was addicted to it. "Now we gotta fill it up, eh? Grab the hose, won't cha? The tap's a bit stiff, so ask yer Ma for help if you need to."

Tobias straightened, and his back clicked in multiple places.

@Severus Snape

The joke regarding the Mitchell's went completely over his head. Ah, childhood innocence. "There's a lot of them!" Severus tried to avoid them as much as possible most days. It often got too overwhelming to deal with.

"I think I prefer a pool!" He'd never eeen a rubbery ferris wheel. Did they exist? His knowledge of those rides only ever extended to traveling fairs that would occasionally make an appearance on the nicer outskirts of Cokeworth; the company tried to avoid some of the crooks that hung around Red Robin as much as they could.

Nodding, he ran over to the hose. The exterior felt warm from sitting in the sun, but the water itself was sufficient. Could've been a bit colder... Severus knocked on the tap and allowed himself a quick drink before dragging it over to the pool. Refreshing! "I got the hose, da!"

Their own pool! Wow!

@Tobias Snape

"Fill it up 'til it spills over. You want the deepest it can be, don't cha?"

He hadn't paid much for the pool, but it wasn't honestly obtained. The neighbouring factory to the one Tobias worked at was a toy factory, and one of his friends, Roger, worked in quality control. If toys had slight faults after manufacturing, they were counted and wasted, or else donated to places like children's hospices. Some of those flawed toys slipped the attention of Roger's employers, and he ended up selling them onto private clients. If he was found out, he'd definitely lose his job, so Tobias was good to keep quiet about it.

This pool had several punctures when he'd bought it off Roger, but he'd managed to patch it up with his friend's help. There was no way he could afford one off the shelf, unless he wanted to give up on their household bills...

Tobias grabbed the hose from his son mid-way, put his finger over the hole to set it to spray, and drenched Severus head to toe, laughing. Dropping the hose, he jogged back to the rear of the garden, making a stance of getting ready to run. "Tell yer what. If you can get me back, I'll double yer pocket money for next week." Grinning and setting himself up for the challenge, he tossed the end of his cigarette over the back fence and got ready to run.

@Severus Snape

Enthusiastically, Severus nodded and answered, "Yes, da!" A really deep pool?! This was the best heatwave ever!

His legs jiggled in place while he watched it fill up with water. It was hard to hide just how happy he wss that his family now had a pool of their own; now they wouldn't have to suffer each heatwave! Then, the hose was taken from him mid-way, and it was like his dad gave him a localized rain shower. Woo! The next few minutes had him giggling uncontrollably until he picked the hose back up to chase his dad with it.

Exrra pocket money?! He could get a few sweets with that! If he saved enough, maybe even a 45! They didn't possess too many records, so most of their music intake was provided by the radio.

"Da! Da, I'm coming!"

The hose was a drag to scurry around with. At one point, he nearly managed to wrap it around his own ankle. His mind painted the mundane object to be a divine snake. The snake hailed from a desert oasis and was always conveniently around to families who lacked options to cool down. It was his luck that though it still physically looked and felt like a hose, the hose began hissing just like a snake.

@Tobias Snape

He slapped his hands together gleefully.

"C'mon son, yer Hurst coming up from centre field - you got the ball - it's a few seconds left. The goal is open and they think it's all over!"

Last year's football World Cup final was still fresh in everyone's mind over the country. Geoff Hurst effortlessly kicked the ball in the net at the last possible second, securing England's victory for the first time. Although Tobias had tried to get his son into the sport, he didn't seem particularly interested. He just put it down to a child's attention span and didn't think too much into it.

But as he dodged around the shed and played with his son, something happened that he couldn't really explain. The hose, although hissing with the spray of water, really started to hiss differently. Tobias looked taken aback by it for a moment. When he thought he saw a forked tongue flicker out from the spout, however, he roared unexpectedly: "PUT IT DOWN!"

@Severus Snape

Severus was ecstatic when England had won the World Cup, but that was the furthest extent of his interest in football. If anything, his interest had more to do with being patriotic than any real care for the sport, any sport in general.

At command, he immediately dropped the hose to the ground. It began acting more snake-like despite still being a hose. It slithered slowly through the grass. Severus looked frightened as a result of his father's reaction. "Did I do something wrong, da?" he wondered with a frown as he watched the hose-snake wither. That's funny. He was imagining that the hose was a snake, and now it's acting like a snake! Did that mean he was magical just like mum?!

@Tobias Snape

He could feel himself turning pale. He wished he didn't know what this was, and what it meant. He wished that he could just put it down to a trick of the mind: somehow his garden hose had turned into a snake because of a design flaw in the factory... that was stupid. But was it any less stupid than the truth? That his son was just like his wife.

Seeing the snake slithering between the grass, the only thing he could think of doing was picking it up quickly and chucking it over the back fence. A few seconds later there were some screams from further down the street, but he didn't concern himself with that right now.

"Get inside."

His tone was completely different. Although it was stern, it had a shaken edge to it. That bothered him. To be shook up by magic.

"NOW!" he bellowed.

@Severus Snape

He didn't like it when dad got angry or upset or felt negatively in general. It was always a bad sign to him. He didn't like an angry dad. Tears began welling up in his eyes. What did he do wrong?

Did his imagination go too far? Severus didn't realize he could do that. Then again, he also managed to make the water a bit cooler. That was negligible in comparison to the hose-snake. He didn't bother to respond in acknowledgement, Severus rushed to the inside of the house. He just wanted to enjoy the pool...

@Tobias Snape

Eileen had said it would happen. Tobias had shouted at her, whenever she said it. There was a slim possibility that he wouldn't be magical, she said, but they should be prepared for it when it happened: magic in children is unpredictable, and can happen at a blink of an eye. In the blistering heat of the long summer, Tobias suddenly felt his skin turn to gooseflesh. He felt a chill that he knew didn't exist. There was no denying it any longer: his son was exactly like his wife, and couldn't lead a normal life growing up.

After stewing in silence, he made his way back to the house and slammed the door shut.

"Yer saw that, didn't you?" he snapped at his wife, and she gazed meekly at him: knowing she would be at the mercy of his rage all evening. "You saw what he did? What he is?!" Eileen didn't answer. She looked at her son, then looked back at her husband, stammering.

"You're the reason why my son's a freak! What're we gonna do now Eileen?! The whole fuckin' neighbourhood is gonna know that he's got somethin' wrong with him! How am I supposed to lead a normal life with that fuckin' time bomb bein' around?!"

As he shouted at her, he kept jabbing his finger out towards his son, but didn't look at him.

"LOOK at me when I'm talkin' to you!" he roared, grabbing her arms and shaking her. "This is your MESS. DO somethin' about it!"

@Severus Snape

In the time waiting for his father to get into the house, Severus did his best to try and shrink. He wanted to be invisible. Why did his father loathe magic so much? Was he upset he didn't have it? Whatever it was, he didn't want mum to get hurt again. He never liked the yelling or slamming or any display of rage. It frightened him. Every time, it made him hide the best he could to try and avoid it.

This time, however, he couldn't go anywhere. He looked at his mother with apprehension in his eyes. The dam was getting ready to burst. Why couldn't he just muffle the noise? He could only cup his ears with his palms for so long.

A freak. He was a freak. A tear fell down his cheek and splashed onto the floorboard. He couldn't help it! Since he was a baby, there was a tendency to get emotional whenever his mother was targeted.

"D-don't hurt mummy..."

@Tobias Snape

Their heated argument only got worse. He was shaking her - harder and harder - feeling the rage burning inside of him right through to the core. They argued about responsibility: Tobias said it was her responsibility to ensure her son behaved himself, and she said it was both of their responsibilities, as parents, to raise him through the tribulations yet to come. She said there was no way of stopping it. He said there must be a way. She met him with the same answer: over, and over again. That's when he threw her against the cooker, to the dusty floor.

Hearing his son speak, Tobias turned. His face, reddened and contorted with wrath, was nothing like the jovial, jolly Father he'd been a short while ago. He turned on him then, grabbed his little wrist, and squeezed until his knuckles turned white.

"What've I told you about speakin' before you're spoken to!" he demanded, his voice booming around the small living space. "You never learn!" Eileen was whimpering, begging him not to hurt him. Tobias let go of him, annoyed by her wailing. He barked at her to be quiet. They went back and forth again for a while, before Tobias had had enough, and signalled that by kicking the dining table.

"Get upstairs and out of my sight. The pair of yer."

He threw himself into his armchair and lit a cigarette, silently fuming.

@Severus Snape

It was horrid enough to hear some of the screaming during past arguments. Being right in the middle and the reason for it stung on another level. He didn't want to be why dad was mad or why mummy hurt. Why couldn't they just be a happy family?

A tiny shriek escaped from him as he felt his wrist wrapped in a firm grip. His eyes became redder and wetter; they were ready to burst like a geyser. Severus looked away and tried to find something else in the vicinity to focus on. Anything to distract from the pain.

What was initially the best after school day ever had quickly soured into darkness and despair.

After what felt like eternity, his wrist was freed. Never had he seen his skin so red outside of sunburns. "That hurt..." It wasn't audible, it was more of a squeak. He couldn't take anymore of this. Why did his dad hate magic so much? Did it really make him a freak? He didn't want to be a freak!

Severus immediately ran back up to his room once commanded. At least in there he could sob away...

@Tobias Snape