How I Spent My Spring Holidays, By Prof. Severus Snape

How I Spent My Spring Holidays, by Prof. Severus Snape

Chapter One: You Raise Me Up

Draco stared at the Muggle televisum disconsolately.

"Why don't you have this Red Button thingy, then?"

"Why don't you have this Red Button thingy, sir," I replied sharply.

Even though I had endured the role of babysitter for a spotty, whining teen for nigh on eight months, I still liked to enforce the niceties. The boy's manners were sliding deplorably. I think he may have been spending too many hours listening at the windows, to the Muggle louts who congregated in Spinner's End. Perhaps I needed to look into double glazing.

Pretending not to hear my reprimand, Draco draped his thin legs over the end of the sofa and yawned. "But a Red Button's for real wikkid bad, innit? I could play Attack of the Graske."

"W-what?" Wormtail looked up from his ironing, his nostrils twitching. "Attack? Where? Severus, p-please - let me fetch the wands."

"No magic!" I said firmly. "Magic always leaves a trace. The incompetent dullards at the Ministry are busily searching for us by every magical means available. So long as our wands remain securely stowed in the Bovril tin on the lower shelf of my pantry, we will never be found."

"B-b-but," Wormtail stammered, "what if they start to use non-magical methods? I mean, you're in the Muggle phone book, for Merlin's sake. And your gyro comes to this address. A-and - every Thursday night, y-you go in that stupid karaoke contest round The Jockey! What if somebody walks into the pub and sees you?"

"I suppose you would prefer," I coldly retorted, "that I refrain from attending that contest? Might I remind you that I've won a Muggle tenner a week for the past three months? You'd be getting rather peckish without my stellar renditions of You Raise Me Up, Wormtail - I've been keeping you in gouda and brie!"

Unable to stand the suffocating stupidity of my unwelcome houseguests any longer, I strode into the back garden. Mrs Molloy's shrieks were clearly audible over the fence. I neither knew, nor cared, whether her wrath was directed towards her five children or her great, slobbering borzoi hound.

Merlin, how I hate dogs. And children.

How much longer would the Dark Lord expect us to stay hidden? It was simply unbearable, with Wormtail diving for cover every time the fellytone rang (Veronica from The Jockey called most days - sometimes more frequently. She was a pleasant enough sort of female, very accommodating to my whims.) And Draco had practically gone native, thanks to a continuous diet of Muggle televisum.

I had purchased the televisum from a punter at the pub very early in our confinement, as a way of amusing the youth. It had proved to be an egregious error. Draco, shielded from the Muggle world for his entire pampered, pure-blood life, had soaked up the taint of non-magical culture like a sponge soaks up sewage. Now, almost daily, he nagged me for periodicals with peculiar names like, "Loaded," and "FHM." He had found a sporting cap lodged in the Venomous Tentacular vine along the side fence (I think one of the younger Molloys may have thrown it onto my property) and had taken to wearing it back to front. His neck and wrists were always draped with thick, goblin-made gold chains, which Narcissa had sent him for safe-keeping. Most inexplicably, last week he took his nearly new, grey dragon-hide boots and painted them with white shoe polish, taking great pains to then write the name of a Muggle sportswear manufacturer on the side with permanent marker. The evidence was irrefutable. Draco, heir of the mighty Malfoy and Black dynasties, was turning into a Chav.

I need to get out of here.

My first instinct was to walk through the estate to the public house. The Chatsworth Estate was full of some of the very worst examples of humankind, and eccentricity (some called it substance dependence) abounded. Therefore, none of my neighbours batted an eyelid if I chose to walk their streets in my normal work-robes, muttering Latin and kicking their pets. A wizard could even Conflagerate a public fellytone or jinx a passing postman in broad daylight (not that I was currently able to enjoy either of these pastimes) and nobody from the Chatsworth Estate would ever call the Please Men. The populace's universal mistrust for authority, and acceptance of the outré, was exactly what I required to remain hidden in the Muggle world.

Feeble rays of March sunshine wheedled their way into my yard, resting on the rusted roof of the back shed. I looked up and saw that the sky was, for the most part, clear. Everywhere around the world, wizards were barreling along in that azure sky. They were on brooms, playing Quidditch at the Melbourne Magical Commonwealth games. They were hurtling hither and thither on flying carpets, traversing the mysterious East. They were astride mighty Abraxans or even upon mangy Hippogriffs. I felt my left shoulder, massaging the tender part where that infernal beast of Hagrid's had pecked me. No doubt the animal had learnt its manners from its time with Sirius Black. I let my gaze return skyward, and longed to fly.

Whether it was prompted by thoughts of that cur, Black, or my natural brilliance, I cannot say. But no sooner had I cast my eyes once more aloft, than I devised an ingenious scheme. In seven long strides I reached the shed, throwing upon the weathered wooden door with all my might. Some of the planks rattled, hanging loosely on nails which had all but crumbled into red dust. I sighed deeply, and wondered if I truly dared.

I had never ridden a motorbike. When Dumbledore had given the conveyance to me, it had merely been as a means of keeping it away from Hagrid. The great oaf (Hagrid, not Dumbledore) had taken such a liking to the motorcycle that he often interrupted Hooch's first year's flying lessons by dive-bombing the castle. The old fool (Dumbledore, not Hagrid... or, for that matter, Hooch) had decided that I "could be trusted" not to use the motorcycle, and to conceal it from the groundskeeper. I dare say Dumbledore thought that the mere fact that Black had owned the machine would make me disinclined to ever touch it. For a long time I considered dismantling it. But at the back of my mind I knew it might one day be useful.

I had not cast the enchantments on this device, so the Ministry of Magic would be none the wiser if I flew it. While permanent escape was impossible, I might be able to bid a brief adieu from Spinner's End - perhaps for a week or more. A holiday from Wormtail and Chavscum Malfoy was exactly what I needed.

I had just entered the cramped shed when I querulous voice behind me asked, "What do you want for lunch? Severus, where are you? What're you doing out - oh - my word - How'd you get Sirius' bike?"

I turned to see Wormtail, his eyes like pale saucers. "That is none of your business," I replied.

"But - but - don't you see - we can escape! We're free! Free!"

Thinking quickly, I pulled a loose paling away from the shed's door. With full force I whacked Wormtail on the side of the head. He crumpled pitifully.

I eagerly scrambled onto the seat of the motorbike and, after a small degree of fumbling, located the key to start its engine. It rose smoothly off the ground and glided out the shed, skimming Wormtail's prone form.

"Draco!" I called through the still open back door. The motorbike purred like a Manticore.

"Eh?" I barely heard him. The televisum was blaring.

"I'm off round The Jockey," I told him. "I may be away for some time - days, maybe. You are permitted to fellytone for the home delivery of Muggle pizzas if you become hungry."

"Brilliant!" Draco enthusiastically replied.

"And don't bother looking for Wormtail," I shouted, as the motorbike rose over the rooftops, giving Mrs Molloy a nasty scare. "He's not much use to you at present."

I kept ascending - over Spinner's End, over the estates, over the great, blackened chimney of the mill, higher and higher until the whole of Manchester stretched out below me like a grimy spider's web.

Now, where next? I wondered