FIC: Survival (PG-13)
Title: Survival
Type: Fic
Age-Range Category: One
Characters: Severus Snape, Eileen Snape, Tobias Snape
Author: gracelessmary
Beta(s): Laura, my best friend who isn't on here!
Rating: PG-13
(Highlight to View) Warning(s): Non-explicit violence, talk of child and adult abuse both physical and mental.
Summary: There has to be more to how one becomes a man; the answers lie in the early years.
It is frankly a miracle that Severus survived his first year of life. He was born a good two months prematurely (it turns out that being severely malnourished and being beaten into unconsciousness will induce labour rather rapidly, just to get the foetus out of harm’s way) into a damp and filthy bed, with no medical attention of either magical or muggle variety. His first few weeks were spent in the bottom drawer wrapped in a couple of threadbare towels, briefly glimpsing daylight when it was safe to be held (in other words, when his permanently drunken father was out of the house) and shivering at the cold water hastily applied to his skin to rid him of the bodily fluids that had been left there too long. Nourishment was not frequent and certainly not recommended for a new born, as Eileen had no capacity to produce her own milk and access only to what her husband discarded, so cups of weak tea or the last dregs of the milk bottle were all he had. However, survive he did, and once he was too big for the drawer and sitting up by himself, the work at the factory had perked up enough to provide a modicum of safety for a labourer’s abused wife and unmentioned, unwanted child.
His first birthday was a rather exciting affair, for all of the wrong reasons. Having figured out how to move around independently, but not yet walk, he nevertheless managed the rickety staircase fairly well - if not with the trademark grace of the man he would become. So it was that 365 days after his birth, Severus was quite happily playing with the dust bunnies in the corner of the front room when his father quite literally burst through the door. The force with which his drunken, unconscious body had been thrown was astounding, creating wounds that would take months to heal and damaging the front door beyond recognition. It turns out that Tobias, in his inebriated wisdom, had picked a fight with precisely the wrong men that afternoon, who knew that the best way to teach somebody a lesson was with the subtlety of a good chuck, preferably through a locked door. Baby Severus sustained many deep cuts on his arms thanks to the combination of flying shrapnel and bare arms in January. Fortunately for him, the innate magical ability running in his veins prevented death by bleeding, but the scarring left behind heavily influenced the armour his adult self chose as clothing. The dramatic event also had an unintended outcome of bringing the child into the spotlight, for in his convalescence Snape the elder had plenty of time to watch his unwanted progeny as he took his first steps. The feeling of hard, angry eyes watching his every movement prompted the toddler to retreat to the room upstairs, and left him with the permanent knowledge of who and where the people around him were at every waking moment.
Two was a strange year. Tobias had ostensibly returned to work, or at least was healed enough to spend his time at the pub rather than in the tiny two-up two-down more suited to Victorian Britain than the Swinging Sixties. His fight, injuries, or subsequent time of recovery had not made the slightest difference to his attitude or feelings towards his still downtrodden wife, but Severus was now firmly in his awareness. Unfortunately for him, the intellect of a permanently hungover middle aged muggle who left school at 14 (not that he ever worked while he attended) was no match for the toddler who shared his name. Eileen had realised that her own best chance of avoiding a battering was to put Severus in the middle of the front room, directly in the line of fire, but for some strange reason the blows that should have fallen on the face of the tiny boy never landed. They struck the floor, or the armchair held together by accumulated dirt rather than any structural integrity, but never the child. This confusion kept him occupied for many months, and many futile sessions of drinking and complaining in earshot of many people who perhaps he should have been more wary of. It was expected for men to beat their offspring in that community, subjecting them to the will of their ‘betters’, rather than actually talking to them. His protestations drew him unwanted attention, but muggles rarely do notice magic, even when a person is sat disillusioned on the stool next to them.
The chest in the corner of the box room provided untold joy. An heirloom from the Prince line, the strong muggle-repelling charms woven into the very fabric preventing Tobias from ever discovering it. Eileen had quite forgotten about it’s existence, choosing to turn her back on the family who still wrote to her begging for her return: she grew lax in her burning of the letters as her body deteriorated with the weight of age and abuse. This opened a new world of hope for three year old Severus, realizing that the dropped missives were precious and to be stored safely in his twinkly box. By the time his fourth birthday came around, he had taught himself how to read. Rapidly learning then completely bypassing all of the usual stages of development for an infant, his parents remained unaware of just how brilliant the boy they had produced was turning out to be - all to his advantage. For the magic gifted to him by his mother made for a potent mix with the stubborn nature received from his father, creating a single minded nature never seen before in one so young, unless you count the orphan Tom Riddle. This nature was not unkind though. On the contrary, he had a sweet and gentle disposition that only one person bore witness to - the invisible eavesdropper. Severus would often retreat into the dingy corner with the precious box, only to find it had been tidied, any rogue papers or scraps of joy that had been collected packaged away neatly out of harm’s way. This feeling of being watched in a safe way was such a novelty to the tiny boy that he didn’t think to question it even in his own mind, let alone to mention it to his vacant mother or irrational father. This first show of instinctive judgement would serve him in great stead for later years.
If Severus had been like the other children in his neighbourhood, school would’ve started in his fourth year of life. But he was not fortunate enough to be born into a normal family, where parents love and value their children and take care of their physical and emotional needs. Instead, his increasingly intoxicated father had lost interest in the family home due to the loose legs of some of the ladies by the pub (who in reality were just desperate for the attention and hot meal and alcohol that preceded the encounter, unemployment being so rife) and his formally magical mother seemed to collapse in on herself through neglect of her magic. As they lost their way, their offspring was almost totally forgotten unless they literally walked into him. The chest proved to be an utter lifeline to Severus who began to find not only books and papers and the occasional inside, but often little food parcels! What a treat; nourishment for all needs, except perhaps the emotional side that so desperately yearned for a loving presence.
On his fifth birthday, Severus awoke to a polite knocking on the door. Such an unusual occurrence warranted exploring, as the only knocks he usually heard were from an angry landlord wanting rent, a loud announcement from one of the ‘friends’ of Tobias collecting him for the day, or from the man himself as he staggered in and crashed into every surface possible. So polite was certainly curious. The almost skeletal boy in his oversized t-shirt and socks with frankly more hole than sock opened the door a tiny crack to find an elderly lady dressed in tweed looking at him. Since his father was nowhere to be seen and his mother was still asleep (probably dangerously so thanks to the beating from last night) there was nobody to ask permission from, so he let her into the squalor of their front room. A short conversation followed, full of gently probing questions like ‘are you hungry' and ‘have you forgotten your trousers’ but they were interrupted by Eileen who, horrified at the intruder, banished Severus to the bedroom. The kind woman decided against taking him away: she had seen too many homes with domestic violence to act so drastically so quickly. The decision was made to send the boy to school as often as possible, where he would receive hot meals and a free uniform and meet people of his own age (if not intelligence). Thus started the happiest time that Severus had known in his short life; the safety and security afforded by the school allowing him to flourish.
As Severus went through his primary school life, the joy he felt in that safe environment only magnified the horrors of home life. By the time he turned eight his father had died. The cause was never conclusively found, but the combination of years of alcohol abuse mixed with a few too many clunks on the head proved a disastrous mix, leaving his son to find him, just days before his birthday, completely cold sprawled on the broken sofa. Rather than telling his mother, he had run all the way to school as fast as his little legs allowed and told that same kind lady who had first met him at the door. As she was only at the school sporadically, it was very fortunate that she was there to comfort the usually calm boy, but the whole nasty business was dealt with swiftly. The grief that Severus saw in his mother completely confused him - his dad had made her totally miserable and yet she was sad that he was gone? Just too much for a boy to understand.
The chest that had been so vital in his infant years continued to be cherished. As his magical abilities grew alongside the muggle academics, handwritten instructions for meditations and mindfulness techniques started to appear, ways to recognize and take care of his ever changing skills. He began to value these far more than his normal school work as, more than a year after the death of his father, Eileen began to tell her son of his true heritage. Stories of Hogwarts, magic, cauldrons and spells filled his mind, and he looked forward to the day when he would actually have his own wand and feed his voracious thirst for knowledge. However as Eileen became stronger in mind, her body started to fail her. Too many years of malnutrition and abuse, not to mention ignoring her magic, weakened her.
Lily Evans was a nice diversion in a grey world. Bright smile, bright hair, and a bright mind drew Severus to her completely and though she went to the rival primary school (where the rich people lived) a friendship was formed. Taking knowledge from him was easy, Severus being utterly mesmerised by her even talking to him. And when he received his Hogwarts letter at eleven, she was so jealous that he gave it for her to keep until she received her own less than a month later. The best thing about the invitation to Hogwarts had actually arrived several months earlier in the first week of the school year. Severus had arrived at school in Year 6 expecting to see his long-time mentor in her usual place in the back of assembly, but when he asked where she was he found only confused stares and pitying pats on the hand. Had he imagined her completely? Why did none of his normal teachers have no recollection of the nice lady in tweed? The answer came that evening, as he stomped through the door in a sulk. The elderly lady was sat in the only remaining armchair in the front room, patting his sobbing mother on the hand. She had of course come to request his attendance at Hogwarts in the next academic year. The professor explained everything very gently to the confused child and hysterical woman: Severus was to attend, there would be no cost with the same provision that he already benefited from at the muggle school of clothing and food and books, she had been watching over him for years unseen by the muggles but influential in the crucial ways, and Eileen had not long to live as her body had deteriorated too much for even magic to save her. The woman would be one of his professors at the new school, and could he please look out for the girl with the red hair who lived not far away? She would continue to supply his reading material through the chest, and was only ever a letter away (with the help of the owl she left with them).
So the boy became a young man, with responsibility for someone other than himself, the knowledge that in less than a year he would be in the best place in the whole entire world, and a new old friend in his guardian angel, Professor McGonagall.