Severus: A Portrait of the Potions Master as a Young Man

Severus: A Portrait of the Potions Master as a Young Man

By Daphne Dunham

Chapter 1: The Book of Wikked Wizards

* * * * * *

"Are you almost done with your Latin, Severus?" Circe Snape asked.

Severus looked up from his seat at the desk and saw that his mother, a sweet but perpetually sad woman, was standing behind him. He nodded as Circe drew close. She peered over her son's shoulder and on to the parchment upon which he was feverishly scratching. Severus drew back and let his mother critique her work. His handwriting was tiny and cramped, and Circe had to squint to read it.

"No, sweetheart, you conjugated that verb wrong - it's video vidi visum," she told him gently as she scanned the work she had assigned him.

Severus frowned as Circe placed the parchment back on the desk before him. Much to his dismay, she'd had him studying all afternoon, and he'd quite had enough of it. All he wanted to do was play with his Junior Wizard's Potions Kit. It had been a gift from Grandma Lestrange for his seventh birthday last week, and he'd used it so much he was almost out of asphodel already.

"Erasi," Circe murmured, tapping her wand to the parchment. Instantly, Severus' tiny letters vanished from the parchment, his mistakes erased. "Now, fix it before your father comes home, and then you can go play with your potions kit - I know you're aching to."

"Can I?" Severus asked anxiously, seizing his quill and ink bottle with renewed frenzy. He looked up at his mother and smiled appreciatively.

Circe nodded and grinned at Severus. She smoothed his hair tenderly and traced the outline of his cheek affectionately with her fingertips. "As long as you promise not to test out your new concoctions on Zoe. She's still recovering from your Shrinking Solution, you know."

Severus blushed, but Circe only giggled. Just yesterday, Severus and Jane Swizzle, one of the neighborhood children, had been playing with the potions kit, and Zoe, the Snape house elf, had dutifully volunteered to be a test subject for their creation. The children hadn't known their Shrinking Solution only worked properly on animals and inanimate objects. Severus's father, Darius, had been furious to come home from work at the Ministry of Magic to find that his house elf had a head the size of a Quidditch Snitch. He'd threatened to take the kit away, but in the end, Circe had been able to set Zoe's head right again with an Engorgement Charm, and Darius had forgotten all about it.

"I promise, mum," Severus quickly vowed, dipping the quill in the ink bottle anxiously and setting to fix his Latin verb conjugations.

* * *

Darius Snape was in a foul mood when he came home, which was typical. He just hung his robes by the door and skulked away to his study until supper time. It was probably just as well that he secluded himself. After all, Severus had to admit he was rather afraid of his father, and if she was honest, he thought Circe was, too. There was an intimidating presence about Darius - an air of superiority and command. He was very stern, and Severus didn't think he'd ever seen his father smile - with the exception of the cruel way his lips curled back over his teeth when he was berating Zoe or shouting at Circe, of course.

They ate their supper in an ominous silence, a silence which was broken only when Darius, finding his plate not hot enough for his liking, cast a half-hearted Cruciatus Curse at Zoe.

"Miserable wretch!" Darius roared at her from under his sheath of long, black hair. "Sorry excuse for a house elf! I should've given you clothes ages ago!"

"Yes, Master Snape," wept the convulsing house elf. "Zoe is so sorry, sir. Zoe promises it will never happen again."

Severus watched, wide-eyed, as a woebegone Zoe left the dining room, whimpering and twitching sporadically from her punishment. He couldn't say he particularly cared for the elf, but he pitied anyone forced to suffer the wrath of Darius Snape.

"Darius, you know I don't like you using the Unforgivables in front of Severus," Circe scolded gently from her seat at the table once Zoe was gone.

Darius swiftly turned his hooked nose towards his wife, casting her a glare so vicious Severus could have sworn he saw the fires of Hades burning in his father's otherwise black eyes.

"Silence!" he bellowed, hurling his goblet across the room so it shattered against the opposite wall.

At that, Circe recoiled with a start and fell suddenly mute.

"I don't recall asking you for your opinions," Darius sneered.

Severus held his breath anxiously as Darius' eyes bore down on his mother. The tension was thick in the room, and Severus half-expected that his father would hit Circe; he'd done so for much less egregious offenses, after all. Darius, however, said nothing more, but turned back to his meal with a scowl. Severus glanced sympathetically over at Circe, whom he noticed was trembling.

An ominous silence again pervaded the room, and Severus was quite grateful to be excused from the table that night.

* * *

After supper, Severus escaped to his favourite hideaway in the Snape residence: the window seat in the corner of the living room. As he was a rather small boy, he was able to sit on the ledge by the window completely hidden with the aid of the drapery. It was one of the few windows of the house that hadn't been smashed at some point in one of Darius' rampages, and consequentially, Severus felt safe there: it was like a sanctuary, one of the rare crannies that his father hadn't managed to penetrate with his malice.

He liked to read here - and he did so frequently. In fact, Severus was already quite a proficient reader and, aside from the volumes in Darius' library, there was little in the house he hadn't attempted to peruse. Circe hadn't liked him to explore his father's collection, but Severus couldn't help it: when he came across The Book of Wikked Wizards by Geoffrey Jankyn, he simply couldn't resist. He'd seized it, half-expecting to see his father's name among the series of biographies and stories about the most terrible wizards of all time.

And so, Severus folded his legs and propped the volume of his latest literary excursion in his lap. He managed to read up to the entry on a sorcerer called Comus when the drape shielding him from the darkness of the Snape house was suddenly withdrawn. He was startled to find Circe, the only one who knew of his hiding place, standing before him.

"Reading again, Severus?" she said softly, her maternal smile beaming down on him as she peered around the drapery at him.

As he was a boy of very few words, Severus only nodded. Circe leaned closer, peering over his shoulder to see what the boy found so engrossing. Her eyes widened as she saw the title printed on the book in her son's hands, the book he had been engrossed in. Circe took the volume from her son's hands and glanced at the binding to read the title. She frowned when she saw that her suspicions were correct: it was The Book of Wikked Wizards, a catalog of Dark wizards that Darius had made into his book of rules to live by long ago.

"Where did you get this, Severus?" she asked softly but sternly.

"It's Darius's," he replied guiltily, although he didn't know what, exactly, he should be feeling guilty about. He was just reading a book, after all, and Circe was perpetually encouraging his avid interest in reading.

"Kindly stay out of your father's library, Severus," she said gently, banishing the book with a swift wave of her wand.

"Yes, mummy," he replied rather sheepishly. It was very rare when Circe scolded him, but when she did - however gently it was always done - it somehow affected him far greater than Darius' more harsh reprimands.

"Now," she said, the soft smile returning to her lips, revealing that her anger with him was short lived. "I do believe it is well past a certain little wizard's bedtime."

* * *

"Mummy! Nooooooo!" Severus screeched, thrashing wildly.

He was having a nightmare again: a violent one in which Darius, his face contorted in rage, was torturing his mother with the Cruciatus Curse. Such nightmares were not a rarity for the child, and he frequently found himself awoken in the middle night to his own cries of terror, his nightshirt soaked in sweat and his blankets strangling his arms and legs.

"Severus?! Sweetheart, wake up!"

Severus finally managed to jerk his eyes open, and he saw the real Circe Snape sitting on the edge of his bed. Her great azure eyes were staring at him with concern as she gently shook his shoulders to force him from his sleep. Tears filled Severus' eyes as he looked at her, the horror of his nightmare intensifying at the sight of her.

It was evident that Circe Snape had once been beautiful, although her loveliness was now thwarted more often than not by the bruises of Darius' latest rampages and the swollen, bloodshot eyes of her sorrow-filled tears. Her hair was soft and the colour of gold, and her cheekbones were high and elegant. In the days before she'd married Darius Snape, Circe used to smile in such a way that her cyan eyes twinkled like stars, and her slender body and long legs were the envy of her friends. She looked perpetually tired now, and while still quite tiny, her figure was more frail-looking than femininely dainty.

Severus had seen pictures of her around the house and in albums. He knew what Circe had once been, and he often wondered what made her do it - what made her give in to becoming the bride of the truly Dark wizard who became his father, what compelled her to snuff out her own happiness. He wondered, but he knew better than to ask.

"Oh, Severus," Circe cooed, taking her son in her arms. "It was a dream, sweetheart," she murmured comfortingly, holding him close to her and stroking his back affectionately. "Just a dream."

When he had calmed, Severus lied back down and watched his mother as she tenderly tucked the blankets around him once again.

"Good night, Severus," Circe said as she leaned over to kiss him on the forehead.

The memory of his nightmare lingered, however, and he grabbed her hand suddenly as she made to leave the room. "Mummy, don't go," Severus begged her softly.

Circe stopped short and turned back to her son with a sweet smile. "All right, Severus," she consented. "But just until you fall asleep, love."

The boy nodded his dark, little head and seemed much relieved as Circe sat beside him on the bed. "I love you, mummy," Severus whispered.

Circe grinned earnestly. "And I love you, Severus," she told him softly. She ran her fingers tenderly over the round of his cheek and took his hand in hers.

Circe stayed with Severus until the rhythm of his breathing betrayed that he had fallen back asleep. She didn't know, though, that as she stood to leave, Severus stirred. He felt the dampness on her cheek when she stooped to kiss him on the forehead, and he realised that she was crying.

"You're the only thing good in my life, Severus," she murmured sadly in his ear, thinking he couldn't hear her. She sniffled then, and left the room quietly as Severus rolled over onto his side and drifted back off to sleep.

* * *

Sleep did not claim Severus for long, though. No more than an hour later, he was awoken by the sound of voices from downstairs. Loud, angry, voices. And crashing sounds - like dishes breaking or furniture being thrown. Alarmed, Severus jolted when he heard them and tiptoed to stand at the top of the stairs to find out what was going on.

It was his parents. They were yelling. Again.

It wasn't a surprise to Severus that Circe and Darius were fighting. They were always yelling, it seemed. Circe tried to avoid scenes in front of her young son, but he nearly always heard them - sometimes saw them, too - despite her efforts. He didn't know exactly what they fought about. Sometimes it was a trivial matter. Other times, he heard the word "politics" tossed around quite a bit, usually interspersed with words like "Riddle," "Dark," and "Mudblood."

"I'm going to meet him, and you're not going to stop me!" Darius was shouting. "Tom has great plans for the purification of the wizarding world, Circe! And while you may be a blood-traitor, I most certainly am not!"

"Please don't go, Darius," Circe was pleading. "Please! This isn't politics anymore - this is just violence! Have you even thought about what kind of example you're setting for our son?!"

Merlin's beard, they were fighting about him, Severus realised. Instantly curious, the boy crept down the stairs to better hear what was being said.

"I won't have Severus growing up exposed to this hatred! He deserves better!" Circe was pleading.

"My son will be raised in any manner I see fit!" Darius barked.

Severus had reached the living room now, where the sounds were emanating from. He peered around the doorway to the room, watching the scene taking place inside. Tears filled his eyes as he saw Darius grasp Circe by the shoulders and shake her. He was bearing down upon her, screaming in her face, and she balked and stumbled backward, cowering under Darius' ominous form.

Circe's eyes turned on Severus, then. She saw him standing in the corner of the room, tears streaming down his cheeks. Her expression changed from one of Darius-induced terror to concern for her son the instant she saw him. "Severus, leave the room," she said softly to him. "Don't watch this."

It was difficult for Severus to hear her over Darius' ravings, but he did. And so did Darius. Now alerted to his son's presence in the room, he shifted his gaze to Severus then as well. A cruel smile parted his lips as he regarded the child. "Come here, Severus," he demanded, his eyes glinting with fury. "Come watch how pathetic your mother is."

"No, Severus!" Circe cried, struggling against Darius, who just handled her even more roughly.

His eyes still on Circe and Darius, Severus started to back away awkwardly, not knowing what to make of the scene and wishing he had just stayed in bed and minded his own business.

"You leave this room, boy, and she'll get it ten times worse," hissed Darius in rebuttal.

Severus paused at this, conflicted. He wiped tears from his eyes and felt all the more frustrated. He didn't know what to do - what to think. He wanted to obey his mother, but if he did, Darius would make her suffer; he would hurt her. Severus couldn't allow that to happen - not if he could help it. Reluctantly, Severus inched forward again, trembling with terror.

"Yes," sneered Darius. "That's it, Severus... A nice Snape family moment."

Darius laughed wickedly then, a madman laugh, and Severus cringed. He hated Darius Snape. Hated him with every fiber of his seven-year-old being. Severus dropped to the floor and curled himself into a tight ball in the corner of the room, covering his face with his hands, and he cried as he listened to his parents continue to rage at one another.

"P-please, Darius," Circe whispered desperately. "Don't do this... He's just a child!"

But Darius wouldn't listen to his wife's pleas. He just kept yelling incoherently and shaking Circe violently.

"Don't make him watch this, you sick bastard!" she yelled at her husband.

It was then that Darius swung his arm back and struck Circe across the face with all his might. She shrieked at the blow, stumbled back from the force of his fist, and fell to the floor in a sobbing wreck. Darius towered over her ominously, his wand pointed threateningly in her direction. Circe held a quaking hand to her cheek where he'd struck her and stared back up at him with her wide, fearful, innocent eyes.

"Watch yourself, witch," Darius hissed, wagging a patronizing finger in her tear-streaked face, "or I will make sure you never see your son again."

A sharp and dramatic popping sound pierced the air then, and Darius Disapparated from the room, leaving nothing behind but his broken wife and distraught child. Circe remained collapsed in her heap on the floor, her hands to her face and sobbing so hard her tiny figure shook violently. Severus wiped his tears on the backs of his hands and made his way towards her.

"Mummy?" he whispered, tapping her on the shoulder.

Circe looked up at him, her eyes puffy and red and a bruise forming on her face where Darius had struck her. Despite her tears, she forced an affectionate smile on her face and reached her arms out for him.

"It's all right, Severus," she cooed, although her voice was wavering slightly with her own emotions. "Darius is gone. He can't hurt us."

A greatly relieved Severus sidled up beside her on the floor, snuggling comfortably against her warm body. He felt safer with Circe's arms protectively around him, and the memory of his father's latest act of cruelty began to fade at once. Circe kissed the top of her son's head and caressed his cheek adoringly.

"Where's Darius going?" he asked softly.

"He has a meeting to go to, love," she replied softly, smoothing back his short, soft, black hair affectionately.

"What kind of a meeting?"

Circe was quiet a moment. "A political meeting, Severus," she said at last. "With a friend... a friend he hasn't seen in a while."

Severus wasn't quite sure exactly what politics were, but he did understand the pain in his mother's voice when she spoke, and he deduced that these politics - whatever they were - were not good. Circe cleared her throat uncomfortably before Severus had the chance to ask another question.

"Severus," she said in a barely audible tone, "how would you like to go away on holiday - just you and me?"

Severus was silent, pondering Circe's question. He was old enough and certainly smart enough to know that his mother didn't really mean they were going on holiday; she meant they were leaving and never coming back, and he wished she'd be honest with him about it.

"We could go anywhere you want," Circe added, this time more cheerfully. "To Grandma and Grandpa Lestrange's, to the sea, to the moors, to another country, if you wish, Severus. Any place you like. Would you like that?"

Severus looked up at his mother's hopeful face. He saw the bruise forming on her cheek where Darius had hit her; he saw the years of enduring Darius's verbal and physical abuse echoed in the perpetual pain in her eyes. He remembered how cruel Darius had been to her, had been to Zoe, and had been to him. Suddenly, leaving Darius seemed like a remarkably good idea.

And without hesitation, Severus nodded his consent.

* * *

The mood pervading the rooms of the Snape residence was quite grave. Consequentially, Severus knew to keep quiet as Circe somberly packed a carpetbag or two with some clothing and a limited amount of personal affects. He didn't protest when she performed a Memory Charm on Zoe to prevent her from telling Darius of their sudden departure. Nor did Severus say anything as his mother guided him out into the darkened street ten minutes later and hailed the rickety Knight Bus.

Silently, Circe paid for their passage to Diagon Alley. They took a room in the Leaky Cauldron that night, although Severus was so exhausted from the events of the evening that he scarcely remembered having done so. In the morning, Circe took him to Gringott's Bank, where she proceeded to empty a vault of its gold and convert it to Muggle money. She sighed as she guided him away from Diagon Alley and through the busy streets of London.

"It's time now, Severus," she said softly. "It's time to go."

And so they went, and they didn't stop until they reached a place called Tuscany.

* * * * * *