Into the Fold

HOME AGAIN

September, 1979

Severus stepped out of the fireplace into the Potions and Physics Department. He brushed his robes off, took his potions out of stasis and resumed the evening's brewing. Determined to force the incident with Scrimgeour out of his mind, he opened his copy of The Potioner's Periodical and buried himself in another article.

He was interrupted again a few times to make stat deliveries of potions to the wards, but at nine o'clock the brewing was done and he was able to stock the dispensary for the next day.

Next came the routine deliveries of ordered potions for the wards. As usual, the Acute Spell Damage Ward had the most urgent orders, so Severus stocked that trolley first.

The trolley was far too bulky to take into the Floo, and Resizing charms could not be cast on a collection of such delicate potions. So Severus put the list of orders in his pocket and pushing the trolley out into the corridor headed for the Rising Ramps at the rear of the hospital.

The Ramps, sturdy wooden boards which looked rather like flat, handle-less doors, were lined up neatly next to a large overhead door at the end of the corridor. Severus pushed the trolley on to the nearest Rising Ramp and said, "Fourth floor."

Creaking in protest, the door rolled upward to reveal a small vestibule, the further end of which opened into a huge hollow shaft. A draught of cold, stale air billowed from the passageway into Severus's face. His Rising Ramp slid through the vestibule into the shaft. Looking down, Severus had a glimpse of dizzying depths that plunged into darkness before they reached the bottom of the shaft, in the hospital sub-basement.

The Rising Ramp began spiralling upward, like a paper aeroplane on an up-draught. Presently, glowing softly as if it were painted in light, the number "4" appeared on the hospital wall, over the opening into the fourth-floor passageway.

Severus guided his Rising Ramp through the opening. It glided into the vestibule and landed gently on the floor. The overhead door opened and he pushed his trolley of potions into the fourth-floor corridor.

This was the staff and utility corridor, which passed the rear entrances to the wards. With trolley wheels squeaking and potions bottles clinking, Severus trundled up to a door labelled:

The Inigo Braithwaite Acute Spell Damage Ward. To gain admittance, please present your wand to the Seeing Eye.

Severus lifted his wand before a peephole in the door.

With a strange writhing, the peephole changed to an eyelid. The eyelid popped open to reveal a bulging, bloodshot eye, which stared first at Severus's wand and then into his face. The eye blinked once. Then it closed, and the lid re-formed into a peephole.

After that, the door should have opened on its own to permit Severus into the ward. Instead, someone inside the ward pushed it open.

It was Lily Potter. "Oh, Severus!" she said, looking surprised. But instead of letting him into the ward, she came out into the corridor and closed the door. "Galen just left. He's spoken with Eugenia Wort. She says Dawlish is doing quite well, considering."

"I'm glad to hear it," Severus said.

Lily glanced up and down the hallway. Then she said, "Is Scrimgeour gone?"

"Of course he's gone," Severus said. "Why shouldn't he be?"

"Well, I mean...." Lily paused. "He's an Auror, and you knocked him to the ground. He's not going to arrest you or anything, is he?"

"Do I look arrested?" said Severus.

"Not yet. Look," she said, lowering her voice. "I don't believe a word Scrimgeour said. He was doing more than asking you questions. Galen and I heard you yell 'Protego!' You don't cast a Shield Charm to protect yourself from a few questions."

What business was it of hers? Why couldn't she leave him in peace? Not sure he could reply civilly, Severus said nothing.

But nothing wasn't enough of a hint. "I think Galen's wondering too. Of course, he's too tactful to say so." Lily paused. "If you're being harassed for some reason.... Look, James isn't in the Auror programme any longer, but Alastor Moody used to like him. If you want him to put in a word--"

"I don't need your husband's help, Mrs Potter," Severus said. "Or yours. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have potions to deliver."

Lily stared at him. "Oh. Right," she said, her tone noticeably cooler. She stepped aside. "Sorry to trouble you."

Severus didn't reply. He pushed his trolley through the door and behind the clerk's desk to the potions cupboard.

After he had restocked the patients' potions, slowly and methodically, without once turning to see if Lily was still watching him, Severus spun his empty trolley back toward the door. As he did so, he saw the ward's Healer-in-Charge, Eugenia Wort, emerge from a patient's room.

Healer Wort caught sight of Severus. Stopping mid-stride, she seemed to be about to speak to him when a Trainee rushed up to her, saying something about the patient in Room Ten whose eyes had dropped out of their sockets again.

Severus took the opportunity to make his escape. He felt a great relief when the door to Acute Spell Damage swung shut behind him.

****

It was an even greater relief, after making his deliveries, for Severus to return to the peace of the brewing room. Too many Healers and clerks in too many of the wards had looked at Severus very oddly. He had no doubt that, by now, the entire hospital had heard the story of the Apothecary who had cured the curse which had stumped Galen Sage.

If Severus was relieved to get back to the brewing room, he should have been downright happy when Bermsley, the night-shift Apothecary, arrived, and he was able to go home.

But he wasn't particularly eager to go home. He liked the brewing room better. The brewing room was a place of order, routine and occasionally, as tonight, a place of peace. His home, at present, was none of those things.

****

Home Severus went nevertheless, to the old-fashioned terraced house he rented south of the river. "Period property!" the advert in the Daily Prophet had trumpeted, which meant that nobody had bothered to repair the leaky sash windows or polish the worn wooden floors. But the terrace, a little pocket of the wizarding world in the middle of a Muggle neighbourhood, gave Severus the privacy he wanted, away from the prying eyes of Diagon Alley and the ever-present dangers of Knockturn Alley.

And the extra bedroom gave Severus's mother a bit of space she could call her own.

Severus had had a nicer flat, a one-bedroom place much closer to a public Floo stop. But that was before his mother had left the house in Spinner's End and come to stay with him. Before he had come to realise that she wasn't going back any time soon; that, indeed (temporarily, he kept telling himself), she was incapable of living on her own.

The Floo stop Severus used now, which was hidden by magic inside an abandoned warehouse, was about half a mile from his house. In all but the wildest weather, he enjoyed the walk, especially the walk which brought him home at night.

As a wizard with a wand, Severus didn't need to fear Muggle criminals. The relative silence, the darkness pierced only by the light of the streetlamps gave him a chance to settle his mind from the harassments of work and prepare himself for home.

For a while after Severus had left his Apothecary's apprenticeship and taken the job at St. Mungo's, home hadn't been a place to dread. He had looked purposely for a place which was the opposite of the grime and neglect of Spinner's End, far from that broken-cobbled street redolent of the filthy river nearby. He had found it in the spare, sparkling-clean flat in a mansion block gleaming with fresh varnish and new paint.

Severus's mother had never been one for housekeeping, and his father's anger, like all his other moods, had been too intermittent and unpredictable to effect a change in her increasingly untidy habits. But while he had been apprenticed to Melusine Morgan, Head Apothecary at St. Mungo's, Severus had absorbed her habits of order, exactitude and cleanliness. Those same tidy usages, which helped him formulate his medicinals precisely, which kept potions and powders accurately labelled and properly stored, which kept the cauldrons scrubbed and the work tables clean of poisonous spills, Severus had employed in the upkeep of his flat. It soon became the neatest, cleanest, quietest place he had ever lived in, a peaceful refuge from his present and his past.

He should have known it couldn't last. His heart should not have sunk within him when Mother had shown up at his flat, full of fresh woes. Tobias had left her again, this time for a barmaid either too stupid or too greedy to stop serving him when he got drunk. The loneliness of the empty house in Spinner's End had been too much for her, Eileen had said, with tears rolling slowly down her cheeks.

Severus had stared at her in silence, certain he couldn't squeeze her into his one-bedroom flat, knowing he didn't want to squeeze her into his solitary, peaceful life.

But he should have known something like this would happen. What had made him think he could escape?

He should have searched for a larger flat in the beginning. Then he might have had time to find something better than the draughty old house in Linden Lane into which he'd moved his mother and himself. Still, Linden Lane had its advantages. The little terrace enjoyed the cooperation of all its tenants in maintaining the Muggle-Repelling Charms with which its landlady had surrounded it. That, the landlady had declared, was one term of the lease on which she would not yield. And Severus knew she was telling the truth about the obscurity of the place, for he had scoured Muggle newspapers and maps without success for any mention of a street named Linden Lane.

That obscurity was a good thing. Tobias had not yet found them. It was possible, of course, that he wasn't looking, but Severus had his doubts about that. Tobias had always come home in the end. God knew why, but he could never stay away from Mother for long. After a few weeks he had always shown up at the house in Spinner's End with his arms full of flowers and his face streaked with maudlin tears.

A dozen times, easily, Mother had taken him back. Severus could remember a few occasions when she had shown a moment of backbone and shut the door in his face. Then Tobias had stalked and threatened her until she had given in.

Severus had long ago stopped asking himself, and Mother, why she didn't use magic to stop Father.

Maybe he refused to ask because Tobias asked, and Severus did not want to say, do or be anything like his father.

"Why don't you use t'wand, witch, if you hate me so much? Cast one o' your curses!"

She did not. She had never cast a curse on Tobias Snape, though Severus had known for a long time that nothing less would stop him.

Tobias couldn't be stopped. It was time Severus resigned himself to that.

Then don't let him find us. The thought felt like a prayer, though Severus didn't know to whom. But he thought it, or prayed it, every single night.

Severus's ruminations had brought him as far as Linden Lane, and he turned from the road into the small, winding street which led to his house. The house was dark, but that wasn't unusual. Unless Mother was in one of her moods, she rarely stayed up past eleven.

He was surprised, however, to see a light shining through the curtains of a ground-floor window in the house next door. The elderly couple who lived there went to bed earlier than Mother did.

As Severus watched, the curtains parted slightly, allowing a brighter sliver of light to shine between them. Then they snapped shut again, and the window went dark.

Severus glanced up and down the street, wondering what the person behind the curtain had been looking at. But the rest of the lane was empty, sleeping quietly under a blanket of night.

Shrugging, Severus climbed the steps to his own house and went inside. He lit the candles by the stairs with a flick of his wand and hung his cloak on a peg in the row beside the front door. Then, passing through the hallway, he went into the kitchen to make the cup of tea he liked to take with him to bed.

He lit the lamp that hung from the kitchen ceiling and saw Mother sitting at the table.

She stared at the opposite wall. She didn't move or speak. She hadn't even blinked when the candles in the lamp had flared into life. The table was littered with the remains of a half-eaten tea: a couple of kippers, a currant bun with a couple of bites taken out of it and a dirty cup next to the teapot.

Severus was already tired. When he looked at his mother, he became exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to brew that cup of tea, drink it and crawl into bed.

But he couldn't leave her like this.

"Is something the matter, Mother?" Severus's voice sounded stiff and strained. Mother would surely sense, as she always did, that he loathed having to deal with her when she was like this.

"Why, nothing, Severus," she answered faintly, without looking at him.

Severus smothered a sigh. He would have to prod it out of her. And how long would it take? How much sleep would he lose? The clock ticking away on the wall already said half twelve.

"You haven't finished your tea," he said.

"I'm not hungry."

Suddenly Severus saw no point in pursuing it. Instead, he began tidying up the kitchen, tossing the food into the bin and setting the dishes to washing themselves in the sink.

With their need for money ever-present in his mind, Severus decided to turn the subject a bit. "Tobias is gone," he said, careful not to sound too emphatic. "He's been gone the whole summer." It was the longest-lasting of Tobias Snape's desertions that Severus could remember. Perhaps it would cheer Mother up to realise that, really, she was doing perfectly well without him.

"I was thinking," Severus continued. "We might as well go ahead and let the house in Spinner's End. We talked about that before, do you remember?"

"Let the house?" Mother blinked and looked at Severus. "But what if your father comes back? Where will he live?"

Severus gritted his teeth. He couldn't speak yet. If he did, he would shout at her, just like Tobias. And he wasn't Tobias.

"Last week you didn't care if my father came back," he said finally, in a taut and quiet voice.

"Things have changed."

She always said that after Tobias had got at her, wheedling and vaguely threatening his way back into her good graces. But he couldn't have reached her here, in a terrace surrounded by enchantments the landlady had guaranteed no Muggle could ever pierce.

As long as each tenant cooperated in maintaining the magic.

"We don't want to rely on the government for everything, do we?" Mrs Watkins, the landlady, had said when indicating that part of the lease which declared it was each tenant's responsibility to help keep Linden Lane a secret from the Muggles. "Besides, the Ministry have their hands full hiding Diagon and Knockturn Alleys from the Muggles. Not to mention the hospital and themselves, wouldn't you agree?"

At the time, Severus and his mother had most heartily agreed.

Severus stared at his mother. And he thought of the crack of bright light shining through the momentarily parted curtains of the neighbours' house.

"Mother," he began. Then he head a knock at the front door.

It was a quiet enough knock. Nevertheless Severus closed his hand around the wand in his pocket before he went to the door.

But he released his wand when he opened the door, for their visitor was no one to fear, at least not in that way. It was their landlady.

"Mrs Watkins." Severus sounded ungracious, but he didn't care. It was after midnight, and he longed more than ever for his bed.

Mrs Watkins looked as though she had been roused from her own bed. The front of her robe was unevenly buttoned, as if she had hastily thrown it on, and her greying hair was covered with a hairnet. She didn't wait for Severus's invitation to step over the threshold.

Mother's anxious voice came from the kitchen. "Severus, who is it?"

"It's only Mrs Watkins," said Severus.

He led the landlady into the kitchen. Mother had risen and stood behind her chair, gripping its back with white-knuckled hands.

"Why, Mrs Watkins, this is a pleasant surprise!" Mother said.

"Is it?" asked Mrs Watkins.

Mother's voice went a little higher. "Would you--would you like a cup of tea?"

Mrs Watkins gave her a pitying look. "Please don't trouble yourself, Mrs Snape. I know it's late, but I wanted to wait until your son came home. I'm really only here to--well, I'm afraid we need to talk about that little incident that happened earlier this evening."

"It won't happen again, Mrs Watkins, I promise you--"

"Incident?" said Severus. "What incident?"

Mother's lower lip trembled and she gripped the chair harder. She didn't answer.

"That man who came round," Mrs Watkins said gently. "He's your husband, isn't he, Mrs Snape?"

Severus rubbed his hands over his face. He was so tired he felt sick to his stomach.

"He wanted money, and I gave it to him," Mother was saying when Severus looked up again. "He won't be back."

"But, Mrs Snape," said Mrs Watkins. "Your husband's obviously a Muggle. How did he find you here?"

"Obviously you have your own suspicions," Severus said coldly. "Why don't you tell us?"

"Severus," Mother said tremulously.

"Very well, I will." Mrs Watkins's voice was noticeably harder. "I think your father--he is your father, isn't he?"

"Of course he is!" Severus snapped.

"Perhaps so," said Mrs Watkins. "You both seem to have tempers. Well, as I see it, someone must have given your father your mother's address. Someone must have told him she lived in Linden Lane."

"So?" Severus said. "That wasn't enough to get him here. What about the enchantments?"

"Yes, what about them?" said Mrs Watkins. "This place isn't protected by a Fidelius Charm, Mr Snape, and I'm not a Secret-Keeper. I'm not the only person responsible for maintaining the Muggle-Repelling Charms around Linden Lane."

Severus clapped his mouth shut. He should have kept it shut to begin with. He avoided looking at Mother. But that didn't do any good.

"I was taking a walk in the park," Mother said softly. "It's so easy to get to one here; we used to have to get the bus when we lived in Spinner's End. I like to watch the children on the playground."

"Yes?" said Mrs Watkins. Her cloying tone was back. She was playing Mother like a fish on her hook.

"He was there," Mother said, almost inaudibly.

Averting his eyes from the two of them, staring at the clock (whose hands now stood at ten minutes to one) didn't help. Severus still heard more than enough. "Why did you tell him our address!" he burst out angrily.

There was a silence. Finally Severus looked at his landlady and his mother.

With raised eyebrows, Mrs Watkins looked back at him. Mother stared down at her hands, which were still clenched on the back of the kitchen chair.

They wanted an apology, Severus reckoned. He wouldn't give it. He had nothing to apologise for.

"I--I'm sorry," Mother whispered. "But when he said he wanted to know where to send payments for the last loan we made him, I believed him." She looked up tentatively. Her eyes were bright, like the eyes of a terrified bird. "He's paid us before, Severus, sometimes."

"Ah, I think I see it now," Mrs Watkins said. "You don't really want to help keep up the Muggle-Repelling Enchantments."

"Of course we do!" said Severus.

"Mrs Snape doesn't. Or she wouldn't have given her husband her address, would she?"

Mother looked up. "But he's my husband."

"Yes, my dear, he's your husband," said Mrs Watkins. "And he's a Muggle. And you wanted to get away from him. And the best way to get away from him was to go somewhere you hadn't taken him before, that he couldn't possibly know anything about. A place, on top of all that, where you knew the Muggle-Repelling Enchantments were as strong as they could possibly be."

Mother didn't answer. Mrs Watkins pulled a chair out from under the table and sat down directly across from her. "It happens all the time, Mrs Snape. A witch falls in love with a Muggle, marries him, and things don't work out so well. She runs away, escapes to a place where she hopes she can disappear. And there's hardly a better place in the whole world, Muggle or Wizarding, to disappear than London, is there?"

"No," Mother whispered.

"Only you don't want to stay disappeared any longer. You want--what's your husband's name, Mrs Snape?"

"Tobias."

"You want Tobias back."

Mother was silent for a moment. Then she said softly, her voice shaking with tears, "Please don't evict us, Mrs Watkins."

"Why, Mother, who said anything about eviction!" Severus said hurriedly. "The idea couldn't be further from Mrs Watkins's mind, could it--"

Severus turned, seeking the landlady's confirmation, and saw that her brow was furrowed with a deep frown. "Mrs Snape did break an important term of the lease," Mrs Watkins said quietly.

"She said it wouldn't happen again," said Severus.

Mrs Watkins didn't answer. Both of them looked at Eileen Snape, who did not raise her head.

"I can cover for both of us," said Severus. "I signed the lease too."

"No, you can't. Mrs Snape's got to do her part, as long as she's living here. That's how the magic works. The wording of the lease makes that very clear."

Mother moaned softly, sending a chill of fear through Severus. "There must be something I can do!" he said desperately.

Mrs Watkins held up a hand. "Calm down, both of you. I'm not going to evict you. I'm just giving you a warning. Tobias Snape shouted a couple of times and woke Mr and Mrs Lindsay. I can't have that."

Mr and Mrs Lindsay were the elderly couple next door, whose window had been lit when Severus had come home.

"It won't happen again," said Severus.

"I'm sure you mean that," Mrs Watkins said with weary resignation. It suddenly occurred to Severus that Mother might not have been the first witch to take refuge from her Muggle husband in Mrs Watkins's terrace.

"If I say it, I mean it," said Severus.

"Fair enough," said Mrs Watkins. She nodded at Severus, then at Mother, who, silent again, did not look up. "Mr Snape, Mrs Snape. Good night, then."

****

After Mrs Watkins had left, Severus dried the dishes with a Tergeatur Charm and sent them into the cupboards, all without looking at Mother. When he was done, he sat down in the chair Mrs Watkins had recently vacated.

In all that time, Mother didn't move.

"Why don't you sit down?" Severus asked.

Mother slowly looked up. In the candlelight, two identical tears glistened on her cheeks. Severus suppressed a weary and irritated sigh.

But at least, finally, she sat down.

"What did he want this time?" Severus asked.

"H--he promised not to trouble us." Mother's voice quavered slightly. She swallowed hard before going on. "He wants to go back to the house in Spinner's End."

"The barmaid chucked him out, I suppose."

"She doesn't love him," Mother said in a small but suddenly clear voice.

Neither do we. Severus bit his tongue to keep from giving voice to the thought, for Mother had reached the point in her endless Sisyphean cycle where she would deny it with anger and tears.

"It's his house too," Severus said, in a tone which he hoped would make her think he couldn't care less. "Let him go back, if he can pay the mortgage."

"Well, that's what he was here about," said Mother. "He and Will Paxton are thinking of going into business together. He wanted me to ask you for a loan, just a bit to tide him over until he and Will were on their feet--"

Severus couldn't hold back any longer. "Will Paxton! That good-for-nothing drunkard! They'd just take my money and waste it on whisky and the football pools! Wait," he said, deflating suddenly. "Exactly how much money did you give him?"

Mother hesitated. "Not that much--I can spare it..."

Severus slammed his fist down hard on the table. "Why didn't you just give him a good Blasting Curse!"

Mother started and shrank back. Severus drew his hand off the table and clenched both hands together in his lap. "I'm sorry," he muttered, then said louder, "You're permitted, you know. The Ministry wouldn't come after you."

"But, Severus, I couldn't hurt my own husband."

She'd used to, though, when Severus was small. Or, rather, she hadn't actually hurt Tobias. She hadn't done half of what she could have done. She'd only hexed him when, like a good many other fathers in Spinner's End, he'd gone after Severus with the belt.

But that had been a long time ago. His mother hadn't raised her wand against Tobias Snape since Severus, at the age of thirteen, had made it clear he was capable of defending himself.

For a short time after that, he had demanded to know why. "Why don't you Blast him! Why don't you hex him! Why don't you curse him!"

She'd answered him once only, also when he was thirteen: "Is that how you treat someone you love, Severus, especially a Muggle, who hasn't the magic to defend himself? How do you expect him to love you back?"

"He doesn't love me and I don't care! I hate him!"

He could have hurt Tobias then, if he had dared, if he hadn't feared the Ministry would find out and have him expelled from Hogwarts.

And now?

He had thrown out the Hidden Hellebore. So, although the Ministry had that to hold over his head, he, Severus, had nothing to show for the crime of formulating a controlled poison.

That was answer enough, wasn't it? Severus had been tempted to hurt Tobias Snape. But in that, as in many other things, he couldn't afford to indulge himself.

He looked at his mother, at her worn face, her slumped shoulders, her sad air. The memory of an hour ago returned to him, of walking in on her as she'd sat staring at nothing, surrounded by the cold remains of her tea.

She couldn't hurt Tobias with magic. She couldn't use magic to satisfy the terms of their lease by helping to uphold the Muggle-Repelling Charms. She couldn't do anything with magic.

"Has it happened again, Mother?" Severus asked.

She didn't ask him what he meant. "What's the good of being magical?" she said instead. "Why does everyone think being a pureblood witch is the most wonderful thing in the world?"

Severus felt as though he couldn't breathe, as though a sodden blanket woven of his own rage and exhaustion had been thrown over his face. "You've lost your magic again, haven't you, Mother?"

"What if I have? It's never done me any good. No one loves you for being magical, Severus."

"They don't love you if you're not magical, either!" Severus snapped, not caring that her face crumpled with hurt. "Magic isn't supposed to do you any good! It's what you are!"

Mother buried her face in her hands. Severus waited resentfully for the sobs to begin. But they didn't, and after a moment Mother looked up.

"You're right, Severus. I must try to pull myself together."

She did try, and for the moment, outwardly at least, she managed. She sat down and smiled at him, and her lips trembled only a little.

Severus smoothed his features somewhat, though he couldn't manage a smile in return. She always did the best she could, he supposed. She seemed less and less capable, though, the older Severus got and the less he needed her.

"I can do it and I will," Mother said. "Starting tonight."

I'm sure you mean that.

Severus couldn't help thinking it. But it was something he could never bring himself to say aloud.

****

Severus and his mother went to bed soon afterward, for they had nothing more to say to each other. Severus had heard all he'd wanted to hear about his mother's day, while Eileen Snape, for her part, took little interest in the work which consumed nearly all of her son's waking hours.

Severus knew that lack of interest was not due to ignorance. Before he had met Melusine Morgan and the Apothecaries of St. Mungo's Hospital, his mother was the best Potioner Severus had known. She was even better, he had thought, than her teacher, Horace Slughorn.

But she wasn't now. Her Potioning, along with the rest of her magic, had become very sporadic since she'd given up hope of affecting Tobias Snape's behaviour.

Could she restore enough of her magic to keep them both from being chucked into the street? Did she want to?

Severus couldn't worry about it now. He was too tired. When he reached his room, he undressed and crawled into bed without even bothering to bathe, and he was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

****

There was banging in the darkness and a half-human, half-animal roaring, like the howling of a werewolf.

"Open t' door, damn and blast it! Open t' door!"

Severus's eyes popped open. A thrill of childish fear shot through him, and he sat straight up in bed.

"Woman! Open this here door!"

There was more banging, so loud it sounded as though it might shatter the door. Severus's fear turned to anger, for the voice was his father's and the time, as he looked at his watch on his bedside table, was three a.m.

"Filthy Muggle!" Severus hissed through gritted teeth. He pulled on his robes, scooped up his wand and ran downstairs. He heard his mother behind him. "Severus!" she called in a whimpering voice, but he paid no attention.

Severus threw open the door. There stood Tobias on the front step.

Tobias laughed on an exhalation of whisky-laden breath. "Why, it's Severus! The wizard-lad's home!"

Tobias swayed on his feet. Behind him was Severus's next-door neighbour, Mr Lindsay, whose face was twisted with fury.

"What's he doing here?" Mr Lindsay said to Severus. "Mrs Watkins said we'd seen the last of him! She said you'd see to him!"

Tobias swung round to face him. "Well, if it isn't me old mate Lindsay! I've come to call on me wife and son, Mr Lindsay. There's nowt wrong wi' that, now, is there?"

Severus levelled his wand at his father. "Get off my door-step," he said softly.

"Now, what sort o' welcome is that for your old dad--?"

"Severus, let him inside!"

Mother's voice sounded breathless with terror. On instinct, Severus obeyed her.

Tobias stepped over the threshold, and Mother closed the door on Mr Lindsay.

Tobias grinned, showing a row of jagged yellow teeth. "Aye, there's a good lass!"

Lass. Severus hated the word. He tightened his grip on his wand. "What do you want?"

Tobias kept smiling. "Put that thing away, Severus-lad. You know and I know it's nowt but show."

Severus trembled with the effort to control his rage. He shoved his wand into his pocket, so that his father wouldn't see it shake.

"There's a good lad--"

"Don't call me lad!" Severus shouted.

"Severus, please!" his mother said, while his father laughed.

"I'm the man who sired you," Tobias said then, the laugh suddenly gone from his voice. "I'm your father. I'll call you whatever I feel like."

Father. He could call himself what he pleased, but he'd never hear Father from Severus's lips again. "Tell us what you want and get out of here."

Tobias didn't answer. He turned his back on Severus and, with Mother at his heels, sauntered into the sitting room.

His hand itching for his wand all the way, Severus had no choice but to follow them.

"Answer me!" said Severus upon entering the sitting room. "What do you want?"

Tobias lounged against one of the battered armchairs Mrs Watkins had lent to Mother. "Just a couple o' quid from the wife and son I've supported all these years."

"Mother gave you money," Severus said. "What did you do with it?"

"Now what business is that o' yours?" Tobias asked.

"You've drunk it all," said Severus. "Well, you're not getting any more, so get out of our house."

"'Our' house, is it? Then it's mine too, for I'm as much a part o' this family as you are. More, in fact, for I made this family."

Severus sneered at him. "You good-for-nothing lout. You've got all the money you're going to get from Mother, and you've got your own house in Spinner's End, thanks to the mortgage I'm paying on it." It suddenly occurred to him to ask, "Why aren't you there, anyway? What are you doing in London?"

Tobias took on a sly look. "That's between your mother an' me."

"You're not about to keep secrets from me," Severus said. "Not when you've practically got us evicted."

"He wants me to come home," Mother said. "And maybe I should." Her voice fell. "I'm so much trouble to you, Severus."

"O' course you should, lass!" said Tobias. "We've had our ups and downs, but we're married, an't we? 'Course we should live together!"

Mother said nothing. She looked at Tobias with an expression full of doubt and longing.

"No," said Severus.

She'd never stay with him. How could she? On the other hand, Severus wasn't about to put up with her shuttling back and forth between him and his father. He couldn't afford this house if Mother moved to Spinner's End and started giving her share of the rent to Tobias. Severus would have to move out of Linden Lane, probably to some cramped bed-sit somewhere. He'd stretched himself on the rent for so long, he had hardly any savings left. He'd never be able to afford the same sort of tidy little one-bedroom flat he'd had before.

"She's staying with me," said Severus. "You're staying with me, Mother."

"You'll not be tellin' her what to do," said Tobias. "She's a grown woman and she's your mother."

"Maybe he's right, Severus. I'm just a burden to you." Mother gestured around the sitting room. "I know you can't afford this and the mortgage on Spinner's End too."

Severus whirled on her. "It's not the money!" he snapped, and, indeed, that was only half a lie. "You don't belong with him! We don't belong with him! He hates what we are! If you go with him, he'll rob you blind, and then he'll try to crush the witch out of you! And when you won't be crushed, because you can't be crushed, he'll leave!"

Tobias tensed. The angry red blotches in his unshaven cheeks told Severus he'd been spot on.

Tobias raised a clenched fist. "Why, you interfering whelp--"

Severus's wand was out in an instant and pointed at Tobias's face. He could feel his lips pull back in a mirthless grin.

"Self-defence," Severus said softly. "Even the Ministry might see it that way."

Mother launched herself between them. "No, Severus! Tobias, don't!"

Tobias backed off a step and lowered his fist slightly. Then he grinned. "Don't you worry, Eileen. He won't go through with it, the lily-livered, snivelling little coward that he is. Isn't that what your kind, them wizards you love so much, call you? Snivellus?"

Snivellus. Potter's constant taunt. Severus could not breathe past the tightness in his chest. His sight went grey with rage.

"Snivellus! That's what his wizard-mates called 'im, weren't it, Eileen? Remember, we saw them at King's Cross when Severus was twelve, when we were puttin' him on that train?"

When Severus was twelve. The old man had treasured that memory of his only son's humiliation for eight years.

"You filthy, drunken Muggle bastard!" Severus shrieked. Again he raised his wand, but he couldn't think of an incantation, his mind was so blurred with fury. All he knew was that he wanted to hurt Tobias Snape, to see him writhing on the floor and hear him scream for mercy.

He heard his mother's voice as if from a distance--"Don't, Severus, please!"--and felt fingers scrabbling at his arm. He shook them off and shoved blindly, violently. For a moment, he felt the resistance of her body against his hand. Then it was gone.

Severus pointed his wand at Tobias's chest. With the greatest pleasure, he saw his father go pale with fear.

"Now hold a bit, Sevvie-lad, I was just jokin' with yer--"

At that moment the front door burst open with a bang. Severus heard pounding footsteps and voices.

"You see, you see--!" said Mr Lindsay, and with amazing agility Tobias dived behind a couch.

"Expelliarmus!" Mrs Watkins roared.

The air around Severus flashed scarlet. With a painful jerk of his wrist, his wand soared out of his hand. The force of the spell sent him staggering.

Severus straightened to find Mrs Watkins in front of him. Both his wand and her own were clenched in her hand. Both her hands were clenched into fists, which rested on her hips. She glared at Severus.

"Now, then," she said. "I want to know why I can't have peace in this house for two hours together. Especially at three o'clock in the morning!"

But Severus was no longer paying attention to her. He had caught sight of his mother kneeling on the hearthrug, hunched and shivering. A sickness began to churn in the pit of his stomach. He remembered his palm meeting her chest. But he hadn't meant to push her that roughly....

"Oi! Where do you think you're going!" Mr Lindsay shouted.

Severus twisted around to see Mr Lindsay's wand trained on Tobias. Tobias was flattened against the wall and looked as though he had been inching toward the door.

"It's him, all right, Rose!" Mr Lindsay said to Mrs Watkins. "That Muggle who was round earlier!" Tobias smiled weakly.

"Don't hurt him!" Mother pleaded. She had got to her feet and was brushing off her robes with trembling hands, as if it were her fault they were disordered.

Mrs Watkins looked at her with a mixture of pity and irritation. "Is this your husband, Mrs Snape?" she asked, gesturing toward Tobias.

Mother nodded.

"What should I do with him, then? I could call Law Enforcement to send over a couple of hit wizards."

"No!" Mother said; then, looking between Severus and Tobias, she faltered. "I don't know. Just--"

"Eileen!" said Tobias. His chin trembled and his eyes darted back and forth between Mrs Watkins and Mr Lindsay. "Don't hand me over to these unnatural creatures!"

"Shut up!" Severus cried.

Mrs Watkins raised the wands she still held and shook them at Severus. Miraculously, nothing came out of them. "That will be enough out of you!" Then she turned to Mr Lindsay. "Russell, do me a favour? Take the Muggle down the road somewhere, well out of Linden Lane. Then Obliviate him and turn him loose."

Mr Lindsay grinned and Tobias quailed. "With pleasure," said Mr Lindsay.

"And try not to be too obvious about it, would you? The last thing I need is the Ministry coming down round my ears."

Mr Lindsay shrugged elaborately and winked at Tobias.

"Eilee--!" Tobias began in a quavering voice, but Mr Lindsay Petrified him before he could finish. Then, Levitating Tobias before him, Mr Lindsay left the house.

****

After the door had closed behind Mr Lindsay, Mrs Watkins looked at Mother. Wringing her hands, Mother averted her eyes.

"I didn't know he'd be back so soon," Mother said. "I didn't think--I promise I'll do better next time. Tomorrow, after I've had some sleep. I'll be stronger then...."

Mrs Watkins sighed. Turning to Severus, she handed him back his wand.

"Why didn't you do what I just had Mr Lindsay do?" she asked. "Why didn't you get your father out of the Lane, Obliviate him and let him go? Or if you couldn't handle him, why didn't you just call the hit wizards?"

"I can handle him!" said Severus.

"Oh? I didn't notice," Mrs Watkins said witheringly. She glanced at Mother, whose head was still bowed. She sighed again, and the irritation left her face. "Look, Mr Snape--Severus--may I call you Severus?"

Severus shrugged.

"Look, Severus. I'm sorry. But I've had several tenants tell me, if your father shows up one more time, they're calling Law Enforcement. I can't have that. I can't rent to people who can't or won't uphold the Statute of Secrecy. It's a violation of the Housing Code, to say nothing of the Statute itself. I could be hauled up before the Wizengamot on charges."

Severus looked at Mother. She didn't move. But she must have heard.

"I'm sorry," Mrs Watkins repeated. "But if you can't keep Tobias Snape away from my buildings, you'll have to leave. It's in the lease, you know. You have to help maintain the Muggle-Repelling Enchantments."

"I know," said Severus.

"Well, then, you understand. Don't you?"

Severus stared at her. She looked slightly distressed. But, obviously, she wasn't troubled enough to take pity on Mother and him. So he refused to answer her.

"Ah, right, then. Mrs Snape?"

Her brow furrowed, Mrs Watkins looked at Mother. Mother nodded without raising her head.

"Yes, well, then! Very good!" Mrs Watkins said, her voice falsely bright. Then, as if she realised how absurd she sounded, she sighed once again and shook her head. "Good night, Severus, Eileen," she said quietly. She left the sitting room and in a moment Severus heard the front door close very softly.

Severus looked at his mother. Her shoulders were slumped, her eyes were still averted and she was still shaking.

"Mother?" Severus said.

She did not respond.

"Mother? I--I'm--" Severus paused and took a breath. "I'm going to bed."

Mother neither moved nor answered. Severus left her there, standing on the hearthrug.

He couldn't stay up all night regretting, apologising, going over it all uselessly, again and again. He had to get some sleep, he told himself as he climbed the stairs to bed. It was practically four a.m. He had to go to work tomorrow. Somebody in this family had to earn a living.

Mother wasn't used to coddling, anyway. When had Tobias ever coddled her? So Severus didn't have to go on about it. Mother would understand that he hadn't meant to--

She'd be all right in a day or two. She'd forgive Severus. Why not? She'd always forgiven Tobias, hadn't she?