FIC: The Fair (PG-13)

[iulia_linnea]

Title: The Fair
Type: Fic
Age-Range Category: One
Characters: Severus Snape, Eileen Prince, Tobias Snape
Author: titc
Beta(s):
Writcraft
Rating: PG-13
Click to View [Warning(s)]Poverty, not very happy.
Summary: Eileen and Tobias Snape take their six-year-old son Severus to a fair in Cokeworth.



It's a bright, sunny day at the fair, and Severus is so very tall, perched on his dad's shoulders. He can see the top of everyone else's heads, but best of all, he can see everywhere, and not just other people's legs. There is an archery game, little plastic ducks to catch, rings to throw, water guns to shoot and darts that win prizes. Severus can just point in one direction-"The tin cans, dad!"-and there they go, his mum trailing behind them.

She doesn't speak much, but Severus thinks it's because she's worrying about their tea; she worries about food a lot. She even said they wouldn't buy anything at the fair, but dad said no, they would, and they both looked very upset. Severus said he was hungry now, so his mum gave him some beans on toast, half a slice.

He was still hungry afterwards, but he didn't say anything. He's only six, but he's not a dunderhead! He's heard his parents whisper angrily at each other, heard his dad ask why his mum can't magic them some money. Every time he does, his mum shakes her head and says she can't, and every time, his dad goes out and slams the door and comes back after Severus is in bed. But he can still hear him, yelling and mumbling and knocking into the furniture.

But this morning, mum gave his dad some coins and put some in her own pocket, and now they're at the fair. Severus clutches an empty cone of chips in one hand, and his dad's shirt collar with the other; he doesn't want to fall, even if his dad is holding his legs.

They go through a maze of mirrors, share some roasted chestnuts, and his mum even gets him a small bag of sweets that he promises he'll take his time to eat and savour slowly, but really, he doesn't think he will. They're all so shiny and tempting; he wants to put all of them in his mouth! He throws brightly coloured balls at piles of cans and they all fall down, every single time, in a great crash of tin on tin on wooden boards; he gets a set of five marbles that he proudly shows his mum on the way to hook-a-duck.

His dad puts him back down again so he can play, and he wins a unicorn keyring that he gives his mum; she buys some pasties and shares a sausage roll with his dad. The last stall they get to is one that is full of pretty toys, big, soft-looking animals that Severus is eager to touch and cuddle.

But when he reaches the stall and asks if he can play, the man behind the long table shakes his head.

"Sorry, young man, you're not tall enough yet."

Severus's eyes are locked on the wall of toys behind the man; he's wanted one of those for so long. A big teddy bear, or perhaps a dog with big shiny eyes… but his mum always tugs on his hand so they walk quickly past toy shops, and he knows better than to ask for one. But maybe, if only he could play, he'd get one… Or if his dad played…?

"The kid can't play, but what about you, guv?"

Mum shakes her head. "We've spent all our money," she says softly.

"Nah, I've got some left." His dad winks at Severus. "And I'm very good at darts."

"Darts at the Lion's Head, perhaps."

"Still darts, Eileen."

She frowns, but she lets him lay his last coins on the table. His dad picks up the first dart of the five the man puts down. Severus leans forward eagerly to look at the balloons he's going to try and pop. They're always moving up and down, bumping into each other and the walls of their cages as the air blown from below pushes them around. The more balloons he pops, the man explained, the better the prize.

Severus grips the table's edge and stares at the dart, his dad's hand, his serious face. He glances up at the balloon, and hopes his dad can get more than one.

Then the dart flies, and there are three loud pops.

"Three! Aha, beginner's luck, per'aps, eh?" The man says, loud and smiling. Other people come closer to watch.

And his dad is really good at darts! Balloons go pop, his dad's smile gets bigger and his mum's hand tighter on Severus's arm.

"You can't," she whispers to him.

Severus nods. "I'm too small."

"Not that; I mean your father. You're helping him."

"I'm not!"

Pop pop pop.

"No one's helping me," his dad says. "I'm just very good."

He pops the two balloons Severus was looking at.

After decimating more than a dozen balloons, the man finally claps his hands. "Ah! You're a natural, guv; wouldn't you like to pick a prize now?"

"Can't you play some more, dad?"

But it's his mum who replies. "We have to let other people have their turn."

"Right," his dad says, rubbing his fingertips together. "Pick a toy, Severus."

Severus looks at the toys, and one catches his eye in particular. For his birthday, his grandma took him to the cinema; they went to see Bambi. It was his first time seeing a film on a big screen, with colours! And music! He had never seen anything like that before; all he could think about for months was going to the cinema again. But his grandma never came back. He never saw her again; she had an accident, dad said.

But now, right there on the wall, there is a deer; it's all white with big black eyes and a small black nose, not at all like Bambi, but something in Severus just knows.

"That one," he says, pointing at the deer.

"All right."

"Well, see, you'd need to have popped twenty-five balloons, and you haven't yet; would you like to buy more darts, guv?"

"Tobias!" his mum hisses.

His dad sighs. "Right. Nah, we've spent enough. What can we get, then?"

Severus bites his lip as the man points at a few smaller toys: a bright pink teddy bear, a Mickey Mouse with a bent ear… he tries not to cry, but he can feel the tears coming. He really, really wanted that deer, and his mum is squeezing his arm harder and harder, and…

Pop! Pop! Pop! Popopop!

"What the… hey!" The man stares at the popping balloons for a few seconds before turning back to Severus and his parents, looking furious. Severus grips his mum's skirt and takes a step closer to her, but then the man looks down at the table to see the darts still there, untouched. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?" his dad replies.

"That! The balloons!"

"I didn't pop them by looking at them; are you bloody mental?"

Severus's mum tugs on his arm. "Let's go," she says, "we shouldn't stay." She's looking around, but Severus wants her to look at him, wants her to comfort him. He knows that he won't get the deer, that he probably won't even get a toy at all, and he's scared, because he can tell his mum is scared too. He doesn't know why she is; she's a witch! The man behind the stall can't hurt her, and even if he tried, his dad is strong too. He wouldn't let him; Severus is sure of it. He's… well, he's almost sure of it.

But now, his parents are walking away from the table, from the toys, from the man, and they don't say anything as the man is yelling louder and louder, calling them cheats and good-for-nothings and other words that make his dad turn very red, but still they keep backing away.

Until two men and one woman appear out of nowhere and surround them.

"Please come with us," the woman says. She looks very stern and very cross, a bit like the greengrocer when his mum comes in at the end of the day and asks if anything is on sale.

"We didn't do anything wrong."

"Mrs Snape, please do not cause a scene."

"Eileen, who are these people?"

"Mummy?"

Somehow, they're pushed into a corner between a wooden fence and a wall; Severus thinks he could make a run for it if he dashed between the legs of all these strange people he's never seen before, but he doesn't want to leave his parents behind, so he stays, trying to hide as much as he can. He can feel his mum shaking, and he's terrified.

"Please," she says, "we didn't do anything wrong at all."

One of the two men, the one with a lion on his shirt, shakes his head. "We received a report about Transfigured Muggle money, Mrs Snape, and some of it was just found in the darts stall's till."

"Transfigured?"

"It means your wife transformed something else into Muggle money, but we have tracking spells for this sort of thing. It's illegal, for obvious reasons."

"But how are we supposed to… "

"Shh," his mum says. Her cool hands cover Severus's ears, but he can still hear them talk, even if it's muffled. "I had to."

"You had to? For a Muggle fair? Really," the stern woman says.

"I was laid off, ma'am." His dad's voice is low, but his words are still clear enough to Severus.

"We only wanted to give our son a good day."

"Well, you've just given yourself a stay in Azkaban, Mrs Snape."

"But… "

"No buts. And your son also caused an upset with the balloons; you should contain his accidental magic better. You wouldn't want us to have to call a team of Obliviators, would you? Take her away," the stern woman tells the lion man.

"Hey, what are you going to-hey!"

"Dad?"

Severus watches as his dad is unable to move, unable to go help his mum, struggling to lift his feet from the ground but failing. It's like his shoes are glued to the pavement. Magic, Severus thinks. They're using magic against his dad, and his mum isn't doing anything. They've got her wand, he realises, seeing it in the lion man's hand.

He starts crying.

Why are they taking his mum away? Why are they hurting his dad? He tries to run after her, but the other man catches him right away, and holds him tight.

"You can't go with her," he says.

Severus looks at him through his tears, then at his mum-except there's nothing but a few pages of a newspaper right where she was just a moment ago. She's gone, with the stern woman and the lion man.

"Mum?"

"Where did you people take my wife?"

"I'm sorry, she broke the law."

"How? How so? I asked her to. I asked her to use that cursed stick to help us, for once!"

"And she shouldn't have. Sir, I'm going to release you. Please don't try anything. Take your child home; your wife will be back when she's released."

Severus doesn't understand anything, only that his mum is gone, and his father can't do anything. He knows boys shouldn't cry, but it's all he can do, even as his dad picks him up, even as he's carrying him all the way back home, even as he's tucking him in. Severus wants his mum, and he doesn't know when she'll be back. It's all he can think about.

*
The next morning, when he wakes up, his mum isn't back, but there's a package wrapped in newspapers on the table when he gets downstairs. His dad is there too; he's not at work, because he doesn't go to work any longer. He sets a slice of bread on a plate for Severus, but all Severus can see is the package.

"Go on; open it. It's for you."

"For me?"

His dad nods. He doesn't look happy, but Severus isn't either. Mum should be here.

He ignores the bread and grabs the package, tears the paper away, and finds-"Dad!"

"Do you like it?"

Severus hugs the white deer tight against his chest before smiling wide. "Is it for me?"

"Of course it's for you." His dad looks down for a moment. "I went back to the fair to get it for you."

Severus doesn't know when, because he heard his dad listening to his records and grumbling at the radio until late, but maybe the fair goes on at night. Maybe the stall man decided his dad had really won the deer, fair and square, that he'd popped enough balloons. Severus climbs on his dad's lap and listens to his heartbeat; his mum isn't here but at least his dad is, even if he smells like he does sometimes when he's out for the day and comes back shouting and knocking into the table and the chairs, and making his mum sad. She says he smells like the Lion's Head, but Severus has never smelled or even seen a real lion, so he's not sure if she's right.

The week is long without his mum, but at least Ghost is always with him, even when his dad leaves him on his own and comes back smelling like a lion and grumbling about magic.

On Sunday, his mum is back, looking very pale and very tired. She hugs him quickly, but when she sees Ghost she starts crying and asks dad what he did. Severus goes up to his room while they're still arguing, Ghost clutched in his arms. Maybe the next day will be better, or the day after that.