Chapter 1 - Buried Memory

Buried Memory


The bus pulled into the station very late, well after midnight and though a crowd of sleepy-eyed family members and friends waited in the station, he knew no one was there to greet him. He waited while all the other passengers disembarked before hoisting his schoolbag onto his shoulder and slumping out of the bus. The driver stood against the side of the bus after unloading all of the heavy luggage from the compartments underneath. Both he and the station manager he was talking to looked weary and frustrated, enough so that neither noticed the skinny, round-shouldered boy with long black hair, sallow skin and a pronounced hooked nose stoop to grasp the handle of his trunk, the last one on the platform, and set off alone.
Exiting the front of the station, he scanned the parking lot where he thought he might at least find his mother waiting with their battered family car. Only three cars stood in the lot: two accepting happily reunited families and one  a shiny, new red one  probably belonging to the station manager. Looking at his watch, he sighed. Guess that means Im walking. He set out along the lamp-lit street sincerely hoping that, if his parents had forgotten him this fully, they would be asleep when he finally reached the house.
The streets were very lonely at this time of night, but that suited him just fine. The main streets were quite safe and he didnt really think even a desperate mugger would bother to attack him but he kept his eyes and ears open and his hand near his bag. A startled cat wailing in an alley made him jump and quicken his steps as he finally turned down Spinners End. A little farther along he thought he saw a shadow move on one of the tiled roofs of the row houses but when he stopped to study the spot, he saw nothing. Another sigh and he walked on, withdrawing his right hand from his schoolbag.
Eventually he reached the most familiar of the houses and stood gazing up at it. Maybe I should just go camp by the river. I doubt theyd notice. The thought burst into his mind like an oddly tainted bubble of hope but deep down he knew it wasnt true. He would notice. He only notices when Im not where I should be. Bet it would only make it worse. Resigned, he pushed open the rusted gate, cringing as it squealed, and dragged his trunk up the crumbling walk.
The door swung open with a forlorn creak when he turned his key in the lock. It stuck when he tried to close it. Inside the front room all seemed silent though the remains of a fire burned low on the hearth. He set down his trunk as quietly as possible before throwing his shoulder against the stubborn door. It bumped into place and he turned the bolt.
As if it had been waiting for someone to imprison himself in the house, a voice growled out of the shadowed room, chased by an equally shadowed figure.
Where have you been, boy?
There was an accident on the motorway. The bus got stuck behind it.
A mans arm whipped out and snagged a handful of shaggy black hair, pulling the boy over at the waist. Dont lie to me!
Im not lying!
Of course you are, you mangy rat. The boy felt the mans fingers tremble with rage against his screaming scalp. You think you can loaf around London on my dime, eh? An accident on the motorway& there was no accident. If there had been an accident it would have been on the news. What wasnt there an accident on the news?
I dont know. The anguished whisper barely left his lips before the boy was shoved forward. His shins met the top corner of his trunk and he crumpled over it, landing in a heap of spindly arms and legs. Instinctively, he curled around himself, waiting for the inevitable thrashing. Footsteps thundered down the stairs, the third member of the household drawn out by the crashes and thuds.
Thats enough! she screamed, reaching the hall and surveying the two figures, one towering over the other, foot drawn back for a viscous kick. Leave him alone! the woman cried but the man loosed his kick anyway. The boy grunted but didnt move. Satisfied, the man rounded on the woman behind him. A resounding slap echoed through the house and the womans head whipped around. Grabbing a rough handful of her blouse, the man hauled her forward.
I give the orders in this house, woman. With a howl, he threw her to the floor next to the still cowering boy. Next door, a baby started crying. Scowling, the man stomped, not up the stairs but toward the back of the house. That was the only place where he was safe& for the others. When the kitchen door slammed in the distance, the boy unraveled his limbs and sat up. Sharp pains stabbed through his side and across his shins. He knew his almost sickly white skin would be deep purple before sunrise. Next to him, the woman sat almost catatonic, her eyes dry. She had long ago discovered the futility of tears.
Home, sweet home, thought the boy.

The baby was still crying next door but thankfully it was the only sound that broke the night stillness. That meant that the raging man, his father, felt that enough punishment had been dealt to his son and his wife& for now at least. The son lay on his back atop the dusty covers on his bed, legs bent so his bony knees cast shadows on the wall opposite the window. On that wall hung the only trace of his school life he dared leave at home: an emerald green poster on which a silver snake wound its body around an ornate letter S. Every minute or so, the snakes tongue flicked out of its mouth then disappeared back inside. For an instant, the boy wished the snake would leap off the poster and bite him, but that would neither happen, nor did he really want it to. The poster shook as a door slammed downstairs. His father had come back in from the back patio. His stomping footsteps echoed through the house, stopping abruptly in the room right below his sons bedroom. Gruff words began rumbling and though their meanings were lost in the floorboards, their angry tone was not. A second voice, higher in pitch but no less angry, joined the first. Soon theyll be yelling, then screeching. The neighbors wont get any sleep tonight, the son thought. Nor will I for that matter. Good thing I had a nap on the bus while it was stuck behind the accident that didnt happen. He got up from the bed and crossed to the battered desk under the window. Drawing his schoolbag up beside his chair, he began to unpack his few prized possessions. First was an old leather bound book titled Advanced Potion Making which had belonged to his mother and would probably be his most useful textbook for the coming year. Next followed a quill and bottle of ink, both the same color as the poster on the opposite wall. Last came a long, thin box, a little worn now from use, but still more than adequate to protect the treasure inside. It was this he had reached for when startled out in the street. Nestled inside the box was a wooden wand. At school he would have carried it in an inside pocket of his green trimmed black robes but experience had taught him to stow it safely away whenever he had to venture near his father. A good lesson learned, for the bruise now spreading from where his fathers foot had met his side lay directly under where the wand would normally have been tucked into his jeans.
Thinking about his father drew his mind back downstairs where his mother was ripping into him with everything she had. She always took a while to really get going but once she did&
Carry on like that and one of these days you are going to kill him! Her voice level reached almost to the point where it always broke and cracked. Her husband was louder.
So what! Strangers listening to this fight would have said that a stunned silence followed that comment but the boy knew his mother was just building to an explosion. While he waited, the boy pulled the advanced potions book toward him and opened to the marked page, a potion that would, for a short time, transform drinkers into versions of themselves as the opposite sex. Never know when that might be useful as a disguise, he thought. As he read down the list of ingredients, he loaded his quill with ink and prepared to make notes in the margins. Anything to keep his mind off the tension building downstairs.
So wha& so what! The tension broke and so did the womans voice. So hes your son, thats what!
When did I ever say I wanted a son? The boys hand jerked, dragging an enormous smear of ink across the page. Hed known that his father thought him an utter disappointment when he thought about him at all but hed always dreamed of a past in which his father beamed at his pregnant wife and later at the sleeping child she held. Now he knew there had never been a moment like that. The noise downstairs stopped. This statement had shocked his mother into silence, or perhaps finally into those useless tears. Two rolled down the boys thin, pale cheeks  one from each of his hollow black eyes. The back kitchen door slammed again. Setting his quill atop the pages, he pushed away the potions book, no longer distracted by it. Outside, the street lamp flickered and died.

Miles away and what seemed a lifetime later, Severus Snape woke with a start from the most vivid dream hed had in years. The hand he swiped over his face came away wet. With the other hand, he rubbed the spot where, to this day, his side still ached.

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