BFS ENTRY: A Rowan in Winter (G; Severus, Lily, Eileen, Tobias)

[sev_shorts_mod]

Title: A Rowan in Winter
Category: Two (11- to 20-years-old)
Characters: Severus, Lily, Eileen, Tobias
Author: duniazade
Beta Reader: melusin_79
Rating: G
(Highlight to View) Warning(s): None.
Word Count: 5840
Author's Note: Many thanks to melusin_79 for the invaluable help as beta and Britpicker and to bluestocking_79 for the hand-holding and encouragement.
Summary: A door can open either way.



Saturday, 9th January 1971

The door squeaked once, a high, thin cry, swinging out on its worn hinges. The closing sound never came.

It was the absence of the closing 'thump' that woke Severus each and every morning.

Each and every morning, his mother went outside to the shed to fetch coal for the stove, and that was when the door wailed shrilly. Dad greased the hinges regularly, but no amount of oil seemed to appease the angry joints. Mum-Eileen-would let the door swing open on going out: the kitchen was stone cold, anyway. On coming back into the kitchen, pail in her left hand, she would grip the door with her right hand, fingers curled around the edge, and pull with the outmost care until her knuckles touched the doorjamb. Only then would she withdraw her fingers and push the door quietly over the last inches, making sure it didn't slip and close with the bang that would go through the thin walls and wake the boy in the room above the kitchen.

A low, grey light filtered through the small window opposite his bed, overlooking the courtyard. If the thick layer on the windowsill was any indication, it had snowed hard during the night.

He lay still under his covers, listening intently.

He knew his mother was lighting the range in the kitchen, putting the pail of water and the kettle on it. He usually couldn't hear her, as she went about the chores very quietly, but the snow had muffled all the sounds from the vicinity. In the cottony silence, he could hear the muted shuffle from the kitchen-she would open the door of the stove to shove the coal in, crumple the torn pages of the newspaper before striking the match to light them, and there would be the light hiss of the flame before she threw the paper in with the coals and shut the door, the clang of metal barely audible. Then, she would hoist the tin pail onto the stove to heat the water for washing, and the bottom would scrape faintly-the pail was heavy, and she never managed to lift it clean off and clear the top of the stove-and then he would hear the tiny clink of the kettle going on the smaller plate.

But the sound he had been waiting for all week long was the flapping of wings against the window.

"They mostly come in the week before your birthday," was what he had managed to get out of his mother. "But I don't think it will come by owl for you," she had added, and the bitter crease at the corner of her mouth had kept him from asking more.

Today was his birthday, the eleventh one.

After a while, listening to the muffled creaks and rattles of the house, he knew with certitude that he wouldn't hear the flutter of the owl today, which meant that either his mother was right about the letter coming by other means, or that he wouldn't get a letter, after all.

The warmth of sleep was already dissipating, and the bitter cold was seeping through the covers. He threw them off and rolled out of bed, feet landing exactly in the old, felt slippers by the bed, grabbed the dressing gown laid on the nearby chair and slipped it on over his pyjamas. It had been Dad's, and he was grateful for the oversize, for the thick flannel wrapped almost twice around him. Mum had cut the hem so he wouldn't step on it, but it still covered him to the ankles and brushed the top of his feet.

He went down the stairs to the kitchen, trying to avoid the stairs that creaked, and pushed the door silently.

The kettle was already singing, and his mother was bent over the stove, watching the porridge pan.

He went to the back door, rubbed up a clear circle with the heel of his hand and rested his forehead against the glass pane.

Seen through that narrow telescope, the yard looked like a tunnel. It was long and gloomy, constricted between the two dark, brick walls. Whoever had planned that row of houses for the workers of the mill had a definite idea of their needs. On one side, the shed for the wood, the coal and the tools, on the other side, the privvy; then there was the rubbish heap where they'd dump everything waiting for the weekly collection, not that the household produced much refuse: wrapping paper was carefully smoothed out and folded in a drawer; newspaper was useful in many ways, and there was never too much of it; vegetable peelings went to the compost. Mum took great care of her compost; it was useful for the allotment.

It had snowed hard during the night. There was a good foot of it on the roof of the shed, and the ground was an uninterrupted white blanket, except where the jagged stones that hemmed in the rubbish heap broke through the snow like black teeth. A spindly rake, propped against the old shed, wore a high, precarious cap of snow, like a ceremonial headdress on the top of its handle.

The house was the last in the row, so there was nothing to the right of the wall except the wasteland, mostly occupied now by the car park that separated it from the mill and, beyond that, from the ruins of the older mill.

Coils of thin smoke were rising from a few of the neighbouring houses on the left, but the tall chimney of the mill was as lifeless as it had been for two years.

"Severus, the cups."

He turned from the window and went wordlessly to the cupboard. When he turned back, cups and bowls in hand, she had straightened up from the stove and was tightening the belt of her ratty green dressing gown.

She frowned as she saw him drag his feet to the table, eyes still fixed on his toes.

Her face was lined beyond her years, like the bed of a dried-up river. Deep lines of worry furrowed her brow with a deeper, double groove of scowl between the eyebrows; two other lines arched from the nose to the corners of her mouth. The black eyes were circled with dark shadows, but she was thin and straight as a steel rod.

Still looking at his toes, he put the three cups and three bowls on the wooden table.

She took his chin between her fingers and tilted it up with infinite tenderness.

"Severus, you are a wizard."

~*~*~*~*~
He was beginning to raise his eyes to meet his mother's when a loud crack boomed behind the door to the sitting room, followed by the clatter of wood on wood. Mum-no, Eileen; she had said he was old enough to call her by name-frowned and released his chin.

"Stay here."

He backed towards the stove so that he was out of view when she opened the door just wide enough to pass through. She closed it carefully behind her.

Severus went at once back to the door and glued his ear to it. The other side of the door, as well as all the walls of the sitting room, were covered in tightly laden shelves of books-his mother's inheritance-and there were a few things the famous glass eye couldn't penetrate. The sounds were somewhat muffled, but Mum-Eileen-spoke a little louder than usual, as if she wanted him to know.

"On a Saturday, Moody? Not your usual Thursday round. To what do I owe the honour?"

"Your brat's going to Hogwarts. They've decided to take him in and even gave an allowance."

"How kind of them."

"Seems Dumbledore hasn't given up the hope of reading your damn books."

"Blank to anyone not a Prince, Moody. Blank to me, too, since I'm wandless. You understand how the enchantment works?"

"Maybe he'll take a look into your boy's mind."

"He's welcome to-the boy couldn't read them either, could he?"

There was a short pause, filled by the sound of Moody's stumping. Thunk, thunk, thunk-three steps to the fireplace-thunk,thunk,thunk-three steps back.

"He will have a wand, now."

"They are old, boring Potions recipes and Gobstones strategies, for Merlin's sake. Dumbledore knows; he's rummaged around in my head often enough."

"He says two-thirds of your memories were wiped out. Your Walpurgis friends didn't tread lightly, did they? Left you for dead, too. After killing the others."

His mother's voice was softer.

"They were not my friends. And they were not Walpurgis."

"Whatever the name, you were chummy enough until you tried to double-cross them. I would have taken more than your wand, Prince-you should be rotting in Azkaban right now."

"I was not the greatest of Grindelwald's supporters, Mad Eye."

Moody snorted. "Fudge is an idiot. It's bad enough that you've got your little 'vegetable' allotment out there. All those flickers of magic in the house, too-all of them random outbursts from the kid, I bet. And Dumbledore has to think the best about people."

"Oh, I don't know about that, but I'm grateful he has granted me protection from my friends, even if my assigned bodyguard-you-hates me, and even if his protection much resembles house-arrest."

"You went and married a Muggle-very clever move, that-even published the announcement in the Prophet for everyone to see. Spawned with him, too. You always were a cold snake, Prince. And now your snakelet's going to Hogwarts."

There was a light thump on the rickety table, then the heavier clunk of a bag of coins, and at last the noisy crack of angry Disapparition.

~*~*~*~*~
Severus knew Mad Eye had gone, but he also knew he shouldn't go in until his mother called. He waited, sweating, cheek almost numb from being pressed so hard to the door.

At last, she called, voice both soft and urgent: "Severus!"

He pushed the door.

She was sitting on the sofa, bent over the small coffee table, both hands pressing palms downwards on the pages of the book splayed in front of her, as if to keep it from flying away or thrashing. The still rolled-up parchment and the bag had been pushed to the side.

He kneeled on the other side of the table and, without a word, placed his hands on hers. They were almost as big-he had had a growth spurt these last months.

Together, in silence, they pressed with all their might on the old book, but he could feel Libatius Borage's text crumbling inwards, seeping through his fingers like sand. It had taken Eileen so much energy to fix it over the older, innumerable layers inscribed, one after the other, by generations of Princes, and now it was sliding away, undone, dispersing, and the older layers writhed into life: Ogham, Futhark, Etruscan, Greek, Orkhon, languages he understood, languages he knew to be foreign, and wholly unrecognisable languages, struggling for the light, rearing over each other and falling back to the depths before rearing again. He could feel the energies reverberating into his and Eileen's body, and his arms were rigid with the effort. Finally, Eileen clenched her teeth, and he could feel a last shot of energy flowing from her into the book, a desperate command. The book gave a jolt and subsided. For the moment.

He looked at her, and she nodded. Very slowly, he lifted his hands, and she lifted hers from the book, still ready to press down at the slightest sign of rebellion.

The book lay innocuously open, displaying old Borage's inept instructions for the Draught of Living Death. Advanced Potions Making, Eileen's old textbook. Her gift to her son.

Eileen's face was ashen. Severus got to his feet and looked at her, waiting.

Eileen nodded.

He went upstairs to get dressed.

~*~*~*~*~
When Severus came back, bundled up in two jumpers and the old coat, booted and holding the beanie in his hand, Dad was trampling his feet on the doormat to get the snow off his boots. He nodded to Severus and held out, gingerly, a parcel wrapped in fancy paper.

"For you. Put it away on the sill for this evening."

Severus took the parcel to the kitchen, opened the window, brushed off the snow and placed the package carefully on the outer ledge before closing the window. He had seen that kind of wrapping only once, at the Evans', and it had contained a Battenberg cake.

He returned to the sitting room. It was already filled with the raw smell of wet wool, which meant that Dad was home from the night shift.

The heavy black coat, speckled with melting snowflakes, was hanging on the rack behind the door, and Dad was fishing two cloth-bound volumes out of the deep pockets. He always dropped in at the library on Saturdays and borrowed the two books he would read before going again on Monday to unload bricks by the livid light of the railway station.

Severus craned his neck to see the titles. They were: "Typhoon" and "Under Western Eyes."

Eileen had been sitting quietly, head bowed, but as Tobias turned to put his books on his side of the table, in front of the armchair, she raised her head and looked at him.

For a moment, Dad just stood there, taking in her face, the rolled parchment, the bag of coins.

Severus was beginning to sweat under his layers of clothes.

She squeezed out a half-smile and said, "I'm sending him to the pub. Your breakfast is in the kitchen."

Tobias nodded curtly and turned to his son. "Do as your mother says."

Severus bolted.

~*~*~*~*~
It was snowing again, leisurely, and Severus pulled down the bean hat almost to his eyebrows, walking with his chin tucked in, so that he didn't see her when she turned the corner running and whacked into him.

"Oh!" she said. "Sorry." Then, almost without pausing, "Have you got it?"

She was wearing a navy blue parka over her jeans and a white beret, and her cheeks were red with cold and excitement.

Severus rolled his eyes.

She had been pestering him every day of the last week, asking if he'd got his letter yet and fretting about receiving her own letter at the end of the month.

Now she was waiting for his answer, upturned face full of anguished hope.

He nodded.

She jumped, clapping her mitten-covered hands. "I knew it! I knew it!" she chanted. Then, just as suddenly, chastened, "Do you think I'll get mine?"

"It's only three weeks more, Lily," he said. "Of course you'll get it."

She brightened again. "Isn't it funny that we've both got our birthdays in the same month?" and then, changing course with a swallow-like swerve, "Where were you going?"

"Mum has sent me to fetch something from the Spinner's."

"I'm coming with you!"

She slid her hand into his and almost skipped all the way to the pub, gibbering about which Hogwarts professor would come to talk to her parents and what he/she would look like.

"I dunno. Old?" said Severus very seriously. She stopped, taken aback, then laughed wholeheartedly. "You didn't tell your parents, did you?" he resumed, frowning and clasping her hand a little tighter.

"No," she whispered. "You told me not to. But Petunia did. She told them you were a... freak, and made branches fall and said I was a witch.

"But Mum told her to stop talking nonsense and that you were just socio-economically dis... disadvantaged, and we had to be nice to you."

"Good," said Severus, relieved.

They had reached the pub, and he pushed the heavy door, letting out a waft of warm air, heavy with tobacco smoke and the pungent scent of beer.

The barman was washing glasses under the orange glow of the new ceiling light. That, with a bit of brown and orange patterned wallpaper, was the result of a recent effort to get the pub in line with the current tastes. Without even raising his eyes, he pointed his chin at Lily: "The miss stays out," then at Severus: "The snug."

Severus shrugged at Lily. She let go of his hand. "I'll be at Tesco's."

He watched her cross the street, then slunk in and made for the door to the snug at the other end of the room.

"Hey," said one of the men leaning on the bar. He was dressed in grey, baggy corduroys and a frayed jean jacket. Severus thought his face looked like a crumpled paper. "How come you let that kid in-and into the snug on top of that?"

"Not your business," said the barman curtly.

"It's the Snape boy," insisted Crumpled.

"Aw, shut up, Andy," said a second man. He had black sideburns and a comfortable paunch. "We know how you go on about old Toby, but he was the best foreman we ever had."

"They sacked him before us, didn't they? And right they were. He had gone mad with that witch."

"They framed him because he was a shop steward, and he fought when they began to lay off people, unlike you and me who collected the severance and came to drink it at the Spinner's. I heard they had help too; someone had slipped those tools into Toby's bag just before the inspection. Now shut up."

Severus had almost reached the other end when the third customer, a twenty-something in a red satin shirt with large lapels, slid from his chair and waddled to the jukebox. As the jazzy riff began, he could hear Crumpled lamenting, "Fuck, Ray, not your blasted Doors again! I wish the music was over!"

The door of the snug, shutting behind Severus, cut off the first blast of the song.

~*~*~*~*~
He leaned with his back against the door, waiting for his eyes to get used to the darkness of the room. It had been a proper snug once, but these days it was more of a storeroom, cluttered with crates, kegs and cardboard boxes. The only bulb dangling from the ceiling barely lighted a central path among the jumble.

The nook at the left of the door, where the old woman used to be ensconced, was empty. He sat down and waited, counting the time by stirring an imaginary cauldron of Befuddlement Potion: thirty clockwise, one anti-clockwise; thirty clockwise, one anti-clockwise...

After fifteen minutes, he craned his neck out of the nook to inspect the rest of the room. There was, in fact, someone slumped on a bench at the very back of the snug, but that figure looked at least a foot taller than the old woman, much slimmer and totally uninterested in Severus, so he sat back and waited, counting fifteen more stirring cycles.

Mum had said to never stay more than thirty minutes so he rose to leave. As he was reaching the door, a deep voice spoke from the other end of the room. "She won't come next Saturday, either."

Severus froze for a moment, then pushed the door quietly and just left.

~*~*~*~*~
Lily was waving at him from the other side of the road, a bag of sweets in her other hand. He crossed, calculating in his mind the most complicated detour for getting back home-not that he was sure it would help.

She offered him the open bag.

"Not here," he said, and he towed her by the hand around the corner, down a street squeezed between two warehouses, then along a maze of ever narrowing back alleys until they gained the river bank. He headed upstream along the river, turned around the bus depot and doubled back until they reached the old playground.

It was deserted, and at least, if someone had followed them, he would have to come out in the open.

Lily had followed willingly, laughing. They sat on the swings, and Severus tucked into the sweets. He had left without having breakfast and was really hungry now. Lily nibbled a lollipop, watching him finish off the last of the toffees and crumple up the bag.

"Here," she said suddenly.

She had shoved something into his hand.

It was a small frame covered in red plastic, but it was the new, sleek variety that looked almost like leather. He turned it between his fingers. The photo was smiling at him from under the crystal foil.

"It's for you," she said hurriedly. "In case I don't get my letter, after all."

He swallowed and put it into his pocket. "Lily..."

"You didn't find what you needed?" she said with a sudden flash of insight.

He nodded.

"You can tell me, can't you? I thought we were best friends."

He took a swipe at the snow with his boot.

"The next best thing would be flying rowan berries, but they have to go directly from the tree to the hand of the witch or wizard-never touch any other thing."

"Flying rowan?"

"From seeds that birds have dropped. It grows in the forks of other trees or cracks in the walls, not from the earth."

Her face brightened. "Come with me!"

~*~*~*~*~
She had taken his hand and run back towards the outer edge of the park and beyond, towards the industrial wasteland, where the older mill had been abandoned twenty years before when they'd believed that building a new and sturdier one would bring prosperity.

They stood now on the brink of the pit: the old chimney had crumbled, scattering its bricks all over the area and leaving a chasm of about ten yards in diameter and twelve yards in depth. People had taken to throwing scrap into it: metal beams tangled at odd angles with car parts, old washers, sheets of corrugated iron, bits of torn fences and more strangely contorted junk.

At mid-height of the inner wall, two or three feet above the mouth of the ancient furnace, in a lightning-shaped crevice, a young rowan blazed up, licking the dark wall like a flame. Its uppermost branches, laden with berries, barely touched a rusty sheet of wire mesh that had stuck sidewise between two beams, shutting it in a cage. That was why the birds hadn't yet eaten the fruit.

Severus stared at the blackened walls of the pit: some of the bricks had crumbled inwards, and they could have provided a climbing-down slope, at least for half of the distance, but the path was blocked by a heap of twisted metal. The rest of the inner wall offered no possible foothold...

"Stay here," he told Lily.

He ran around the broken shell of the main hall until he found a passage leading to the inner engine chamber. He edged his way between the sleeping metal monsters. The heavy door to the combustion room was ajar; he paused an instant, then plunged into the ancient, cold furnace.

The stack conduit was a dim glimmer up the opposite wall. He scrambled up to it, sticking his fingers between the chipped bricks to hoist himself over the brink, then crawled along the shaft. When he stuck his head out of the tunnel, he heard Lily cheer.

He craned his neck and saw her, leaning over the pit, her face half-hidden by curtains of hanging hair. She had lost her white beret.

The lowest branches of the rowan were barely two feet above his head, but they were straining upwards, towards the light. He twisted sidewise in the conduit until he rested on just one hip, his whole upper body out of the tunnel, and lunged upwards. His fingers only brushed the bark at the base of the trunk.

It was useless.

He was beginning to worm back into the tunnel when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lily open her arms, as if to embrace the air, and leap into the chasm.

She glided down like a bird on her outstretched wings and passed over his head, plunging her fingers through the wire mesh. She did grab a few berries, but she had too much momentum, and her fingers struck against the wire as she was carried forward. She lost her balance and almost plummeted but caught a slanting beam just in time and rebounded.

The squashed berries had fallen into the snow at the bottom of the pit.

Severus wriggled back into the tunnel as fast as he could, dropped to the floor of the combustion room and ran outside. When he reached the brink of the pit, she was already standing on the other side, sucking her abrased fingers.

"I have to go," she shouted. "It's late; they're going to miss me!"

She waved with her free hand and ran off towards the town. Her hair swayed once in the dusk before she disappeared behind a clump of trees.

Severus stood there, panting.

He had almost made up his mind for a second detour through the railway yard before doubling back on his tracks when he felt a hand laid upon his shoulder.

~*~*~*~*~
He didn't turn.

"Sit down," said the deep voice.

He felt his knees buckle under him and found himself sat on a concrete block he hadn't noticed before.

The stranger sat beside him. Severus kept staring at the falling night.

The stranger turned towards him. He had the hood of his duffle-coat raised, and his face was almost invisible in the depths of the shadow. Severus tried not to look at him, but the tall man took his chin between his fingers almost as delicately as Eileen had.

"Look at me."

Severus felt compelled to look, but as soon as his eyes met the stranger's, he slammed down his shields with all his might.

"Very good," murmured the stranger. "Your mother has taught you well."

He released Severus and took a small leather purse from his pocket.

"It's mokeskin-it will only open for your mother. Give it to her. She mustn't die this evening."

Severus took the purse and whispered, "Are you one of them?"

"It depends on what you mean," said the stranger.

"Walpurgis," breathed Severus.

"We have gone by many names. All were stolen from us and misused."

There was a pause, then Severus asked his third question, and his voice was firmer as he knew it was the last:

"Are you a Prince?"

The man was silent for a moment, then said, "Let me tell you this. For many generations, the Princes had been defenders. Let the King hold and enjoy the kingdom, sit on the throne, bestow favours and mete out justice; the Princes held the borders.

"A moment came when the pressure of the hostile forces became stronger. The Prince who was in office thought he'd build a wall against the enemy, and in the middle of the wall a mighty tower. But what he built at night collapsed during the day. One night, he dreamed that the tower wouldn't collapse anymore if he immured in its walls the first living being that would meet him on his way home. When he woke up, he had almost forgotten the dream.

"That day, he built as usual and, at dusk, took the road home. Then he began to remember the dream, but he was not worried: the way home was long and passed through woods and fields, and if a rabbit or a sheep or a dog crossed his path, then so be it: he would try to catch it and wall it up in the tower.

"But the woods were silent and the fields strangely quiet, and so it happened that when he approached the village where he lived, he hadn't yet seen a single living being.

"His wife, however, had been worrying about him. Instead of waiting at home, she went forth to meet him, and so she was the first living being on his path."

He paused, but Severus kept his silence.

"He took and immured her into the tower's wall. The tower rose high and unmovable, and the enemy was held off.

"But from that day on, no Prince has ever built a tower."

This time, it was Severus who turned to the stranger, but the man kept his eyes averted.

"What are we?" whispered Severus.

"A door can open either way. Princes do not possess anything, not even themselves."

He paused, then added, and there was a forced note in his voice:

"But you are a half-blood. Maybe you'll be different. Now, go!"

Severus ran.

~*~*~*~*~
He ran almost all the way home and fell against the locked door, banging on it before it swung inwards, allowing him to tumble on the threadbare carpet.

His mother was still on the sofa, exactly as he had left her, except that she looked like the living dead. Her sunken eyes looked like two lifeless mine shafts, and the yellowish skin was drawn so taut on her face that you could almost see the skull. Her palms were still pressed flat on the book, and her arms trembled with the effort.

She swallowed the phial's content in a single gulp.

~*~*~*~*~
Tobias had tried to sleep, but when he saw the grey dusk of winter seep between the curtains, he gave up, rose and dressed. He went down to the kitchen, but the stove had gone cold, and Eileen wasn't there.

He pushed the door to the sitting room. She was on the sofa, as he had left her, arms rigid, pressing with all her force on the book she was preparing for their son.

She didn't lift her eyes but gave an imperceptible nod.

He didn't know what to do, except not to touch her. He stood there, looking at the book covered walls, his wife's blank books which he could never read. It was quite a while before he noticed that the fire wasn't lit.

He kneeled in front of the fireplace and cleared out the cinders, leaving just a light layer on the grate. He took a newspaper page from the pile carefully stacked behind the coal scuttle, crumpled it up and put it in the centre of the grate. Then he took a second page, rolled it up tightly, bent it in half, twisted it tight around itself again until it was exactly eight inches in length and, after careful consideration, propped it over the balled-up wad of paper. He repeated this six times, placing the twisted logs of paper in a pyramid pattern. Then, he placed the kindling over the papers, also in a pyramid pattern, and placed the pieces of coal around the outer edges, working inwards and towards the top of the pile. When he had filled all the large gaps with smaller pieces of coal, he lit the match and inserted it in the small gap he had left at the front, and the flame leapt up.

He returned to sit in the armchair.

Eileen hadn't moved.

After a while, he rose to look through the window to see if Severus was coming yet, and that's when the boy tumbled in and fell at his mother's feet.

She took the proffered purse with shaking hands, pried it open and swallowed the phial's content in a single gulp, then put her hands on the book again. Even Tobias could feel the book submit; the roiling characters subsided, falling back like sand to the seabed, layer after layer setting until the Advanced Potions text congealed over them.

Eileen breathed and Severus got up, panting, dishevelled and covered in grime.

Tobias felt relief and anger rise together. He took a step towards Severus.

"Where have you been all this time? You're dirtier than the devil!"

Severus stepped back, trying to brush the soot from his clothes. As he bent to rub it from his trousers, something fell out of his pocket.

"So," roared Tobias, "that's where you were while your mother needed you! Hanging around again with that snooty Evans girl. Bloody social workers! You can lose your bread and your dignity, but they'd tell you to take it well. You can lie there, bleeding your lifeblood and your soul, but they'd tell you to think positive!"

He was trembling with fury now, fists clenched. Severus stepped back, head bowed, face hidden between his curtains of hair. Tobias took a deep breath and with all his rage kicked the photo holder. It shot straight into the fire where it caught with a hissing flame.

Severus doubled up as if he'd been hit in the stomach and slid down against the wall where he burst into tears.

Eileen gave a slight whimper.

Instantly, Tobias forgot his son. His wife was cowering before him, but he saw her as she had been that first day, standing in the middle of the aisle without knowing what to do while the laughs and jeers were beginning to swell; she had been just as white-faced as today, but there was fire in her eyes, his lost queen from another world.

He took her in his arms and didn't even notice when the boy slunk quietly towards the kitchen.

~*~*~*~*~
Severus paused to take the torch from the drawer of the cupboard, then opened the door to the backyard.

The hinges gave the familiar shrill wail. He pushed the door back carefully, keeping his fingers curled around the edge until his knuckles touched the doorjamb, to buffer it and make sure that it didn't close with a bang.

He waded through the thick snow to the bottom of the garden and stopped by the tool shed. There were several empty crates stacked under it. He pulled them out against the wall, piled them up and climbed the tottering stack until he could hoist himself onto the roof of the shed and from there onto the top of the wall.

He hesitated a moment, trying to concentrate (you're not falling, you're just choosing to land), jumped and did indeed land very lightly.

The car park of the new mill was still in use, though not for the mill staff any more, and he crossed its silent vastness by the ghostly light of the sodium lamps. The livid blur reverberated on the snow, and he covered half of the distance to the ancient mill before having to turn on the torch.

He stopped on the brink of the pit. In the torchlight, the three sets of footprints, his, Lily's and the stranger's, intertwined and twisted around the rim, runes set in the snow.

At mid-height of the inner wall, the young rowan blazed up, licking the dark wall like a flame, and the untouched snow at the bottom of the shaft shone briefly.

Severus let the torch fall in the snow.

Black, white, red.

He opened his arms wide, embracing the night, and let himself glide over the frozen fire in his heart.