BFS ENTRY: The Pocket Watch (G; Severus, Tobias, Eileen)
Title: The Pocket Watch
Category: One (1- to 10-years-old)
Characters: Severus, Tobias, Eileen
Author: themoreyouclean
Beta Readers: littlelizzyann and somigliana
Rating: G
(Highlight to View) Warning(s): None.
Word Count: +/- 1600
Summary: The best-laid plans sometimes have to be helped along.
Severus eyed the pocket watch in his father's hands. He followed its path as Tobias ran the fob through his fingers and caressed the ornamental design on the cover and the engraving on the back. He sprung open the cover, rubbed the crystal with his shirtsleeve to clean it up, and clicked it closed with a satisfying snap! Tobias' eyes gleamed. Looking up at his son, he smiled a smug grin.
Severus swallowed. He was boiling inside but maintained a carefully blank face. He'd trained himself ruthlessly to hide his reactions to his father's surliness. Of course, his closed mouth sometimes provoked his father's anger, but this time Tobias just pushed himself up off the sofa and called, "I'm going out."
Severus' mother didn't answer, but shuffling could be heard in the kitchen. Tobias let out a humph and walked out the front door, slamming it behind him. Severus released his breath.
Despite his cool exterior, Severus fumed. His gran had only been dead for a few days, and his father was already caressing Granddad's old watch like a long-lost favorite child finally returned. He hadn't been his father's favorite in a long time, he knew, maybe never had.
Turning his face into the sofa, Severus tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent hot tears from falling. Why did she have to go? Wishing he could make it so, he called, Gran! Please, Gran! Don't leave-come back!
Scenes ran through his head: looking up at her smiling down at him as they walked back from the market; Severus clutching one of the carrier bags... sitting on the stoop next to her, looking on while she chatted with neighbors on their way home from the mill... Gran teaching him how to play his first card game - and how to place his first bet... sitting with Lily at Gran's kitchen table eating biscuits... watching from a dark corner as Gran pressed a cold compress against mum's blackened eye...
"She promised me," he said to himself, quietly.
"What did who promise?"
He gasped, but then realized it was Mum.
Eileen sat down beside him on the sofa, and Severus turned into her side. "The watch," he whispered, pressing his face into her shoulder. "Gran promised me on Boxing Day that when I turned ten, she would give me Granddad's pocket watch. But Dad took it before she could!"
Eileen sighed, then nodded at her son and kissed the top of his head. Severus was warm and wet, from sweat and from tears.
"I know, love. Oh, wipe that scowl off your face, my boy. I'm so sorry. I wish I could..." She considered for a moment then said, "I have a very special gift for you for your birthday."
Severus looked up with wide eyes.
"Something, I promise you, your father will never have... or want."
Something his father would never want? Magic...
"A wand, your very own. You'll need it soon, when you start Hogwarts."
"But Mum, that's not for over a year!"
Eileen raised an eyebrow at her son's whining until he looked sufficiently chastened.
"Severus, this is our secret. I'm going to teach you a few things before you go to school: spells you'll need, some protection. I can't give you what your Gran wanted for you, but I can give you this. And, your magic will always be yours; something your father can never have or take from you."
They whispered together, making plans for a trip to meet the wand maker, Mr. Ollivander, at his shop in Diagon Alley. Severus was always lulled by tales of Diagon Alley, and tonight was no exception. It was dark by the time they finished planning and eating supper.
"Eileeeeeeeeen!"
Severus and his mum exchanged looks when they heard Tobias yelling and the front door slamming. At her nod, Severus slipped from the kitchen and climbed the stairs as quickly and quietly as he could. Scurrying into his bedroom, he shut the door seconds after his father burst into a drunken pub song.
A few days later, Severus sat on his bed silently fingering the wand his mum had purchased the day before. "The wand chooses the wizard," old Mr. Ollivander had said, and those words tumbled over and over in Severus' head. He was a wizard. It thrilled him. Mum was a witch, and he, Severus, was a wizard.
I wonder what Gran would say if she'd known, he thought. Oh! She knew, he suddenly realized. She'd always known, and she'd never said a thing. It didn't upset or disgust her like it did his dad. He smiled. Mum made sure he had a wand because he was magical, and Dad made sure he had nothing because he was magical. Gran had wanted Severus to have the pocket watch because he was hers, her grandson, because she... loved him. Gran had never had much, but she had her beloved husband's watch and had wanted her grandson to have it. And, Severus decided, he would have it on the day she had promised she'd give it to him.
***
Severus started awake before dawn on his birthday. It was still dark outside his window and even darker inside the near-windowless house. Severus grabbed his wand from beneath his pillow, pointed it at his alarm clock, whispered Lumos, and confirmed the time. Early enough in the morning for his birthday to have arrived; late enough at night for his father to still be asleep down in the lounge.
Severus made his way downstairs, stepping carefully around the squeaky step in the middle and hopping entirely over the bottom one. There in the living room was his father, asleep on his favorite lounge chair, having collapsed drunk upon his return from the pub and before his mum could guide him to their bedroom. He was still snoring when Severus entered the room.
Granddad's pocket watch lay on the chair's overstuffed arm. Tobias wasn't touching it, but his hand was close. Severus grumbled at himself for leaving his new wand upstairs. He had the Summoning spell down cold. He swore that he would master a silent, wandless Accio-and others too-before he went away to Hogwarts. I bet all the other wizarding kids already know this stuff, he thought. I'll have to catch up. He was already practiced in stealth, though, and he snatched the watch from his father's chair. He stilled as his father stirred, but he already held the coveted watch in his hand when Tobias went on to his next snore.
Back in his bedroom, his breathing slowing and his heartbeat returning to normal, Severus clicked the watch open and gazed into the eyes of his granddad's portrait within. There were the dark, dark eyes and the dark, dark hair-both of which he knew truly had been black and were not merely an effect of the black-and-white photograph-and he was smiling. His father had his grandfather's coloring, but Tobias had never looked like that at Severus. Or at his mum. Or at anyone, now that he thought about it. Severus had learned from his mum that wizarding photographs moved, and he wondered what the image of his granddad would do if it could do so and discovered his grandson gazing at him. He caressed the inscription on the watch's back and smiled in satisfaction. Severus T. Snape.
It was a good birthday. He wasn't sure what the rest of the day would bring, but it probably wouldn't compare to the gift he'd just taken back.
***
A week later, Severus remained still as his father stormed through the house in search of the watch he'd recently realized was missing. Eileen gave her son a hard stare, but if she'd discovered his hiding place, she wasn't saying.
***
More than a year and a half later, Severus slipped out of his house in the middle of the night and dug up something from the bushes near the playground where he'd first met Lily. He held up his treasure in triumph when he pulled it from the ground, jumped up, and sprinted back home.
The next day, he fingered the dirty, kerchief-wrapped treasure in his pocket. He was pleased to be going away. Finally. A twinge of guilt twisted his gut at the thought of leaving his mum behind, but her smile was reassuring.
"Go," she said, almost pushing Severus into the Evans' London-bound car.
His eyes gleamed when he looked back at his mum from the backseat window.
***
When he turned his head-no mean feat-Severus saw his pocket watch resting on the nightstand next to his hospital bed. He turned his head back to rest on the pillow and sighed.
He'd had the watch in the pocket of his frock coat when that wretched snake ripped his neck open. He supposed it would have been too much to ask for his last tailor-made suit to have been salvaged as well. One of the Healers had no doubt sent the blood-soaked garment to the lab for tests. Or perhaps burned it. He was pleased to find that the watch was safe, though. For years, he had been sure that the watch would outlast him, and he'd had no idea who to pass it on to. He still had no ideas on that score, but he would have time now.