Spinner's End – Bad Timing
By the third day of "I'll behave during lessons," Nico had learned something important:
Self-control was overrated.
Eileen was trying to read.
She sat at the kitchen table in the grey morning light, Advanced Potion-Making open in front of her, hair half-tamed, robe sitting too well on her shoulders.
The problem was not the book.
The problem was the goo currently winding itself along the inside of her thigh like it was testing the concept of sin.
> You're doing this on purpose, she thought at him.
> Yes, Nico said cheerfully.
His "armor" layer was on, technically. Defensive, subtle, invisible. In practice, he had discovered he could harden and soften tiny patches of her clothes in interesting ways.
He was abusing that knowledge.
He pinched.
Just a little.
She flinched.
The chair creaked.
Across the table, Severus looked up from his notes, quill hovering.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"I'm fine," she said, voice strained. "Table's crooked."
"You fixed it last week," he said slowly. "With magic."
> He's too observant, Nico said. We should blindfold him for potions. For safety.
"You shut up," she hissed internally.
Unfortunately, her mouth moved just enough that Severus' frown deepened.
"Who?" he asked.
"Your father," she snapped automatically.
That landed like a lead cauldron. His expression shuttered.
Great. Perfect. Ten out of ten parenting.
She rubbed her temple.
Nico eased up a fraction, guilt nibbling at his fun.
> Okay, that one's on me, he said. I'll chill.
He did not chill.
He re-routed.
The robe's fabric slid over her hips, tightening just enough to remind her she had them. The choker at her throat warmed, her pulse tapping against it.
She was one very bad decision away from telling her son, "Go visit a friend, I need to be defiled by sentient slime."
Except he had no friends.
And the sentient slime was trying really hard not to get her to that point.
Failing, but trying.
"Ma?" Severus said. "We can… stop, if you're tired."
She looked at him.
Greasy hair, too-large shirt, serious eyes.
The kitchen smelled like stale smoke, cheap tea, and potion ingredients.
She imagined, suddenly, what she wanted to be doing in this house right now, and absolutely none of it was compatible with "and my eleven-year-old is right there."
"You know what," she said. "You get today off."
He blinked. "Off… what?"
"Studies. Homework. Me breathing down your neck while you stir," she said. "We've been at this for days. You're ahead of where I was at your age. Take a break before I start resenting your talent."
He didn't smile, exactly, but something in his face loosened.
"Do I… help with anything?" he asked cautiously.
"Yes," she said. "You help by not being here for a few hours."
"…Did I do something?" he said, wounded.
"No," she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I have a headache. And a double shift this week. And if I have to watch one more root get sliced I'm going to hex something that doesn't deserve it."
> Me, Nico offered.
"Exactly," she muttered.
Severus squinted. "You did say something just then."
"Practice eavesdropping at school," she said briskly. "Here, it'll just annoy me."
He closed his book slowly. "What do I… do? On a 'day off'?"
She fought the urge to say: "Be small and safe and quiet somewhere else."
Instead she said, "You remember how to use the Floo to the Leaky Cauldron."
He straightened a bit. "Yes."
"Good. Take your list. Go to Diagon Alley. Walk it end to end. Find every shop on here." She tapped his first-year list. "Prices. Locations. Anything that looks useful. Consider it reconnaissance."
His eyes lit with something fierce and bright.
"You're sending me alone?" he asked.
"Unless you've acquired a secret twin," she said.
He hesitated. "What if they… notice? That I'm… not… you know—"
"Pure-blood?" she finished. "You look like a pure-blood if you shut up and sneer a bit. You get that from me. Use it."
He swallowed.
"Take this," she added, digging a few coins out of a hidden jar behind a stack of old tins. "Enough for a drink, a snack, maybe a cheap book if you find something that isn't trash."
"Ma, you don't—"
"Don't argue," she snapped. "If I want to waste money, I'll do it on my own son."
He took the coins like they were made of dragon hearts.
"Be back before dark," she said. "If you get lost, go to the Leaky and use the Floo home. If anyone gives you trouble, remember you will know curses in a few years, and their day will come."
He almost smiled at that.
"Go," she said, softer. "Before I change my mind and make you label every ingredient in this house."
He grabbed his list, his worn cloak, and his pride.
At the door, he paused. "Do you… need anything from the Alley?"
She did.
Nothing you could buy in a shop.
"No," she said. "Just come back with all your limbs."
He nodded, serious as an oath, and left.
The door shut.
His footsteps faded.
The house went very quiet.
Nico pulsed.
> So, he said, voice dropping, are we—
Eileen stood so fast the chair scraped back.
"Bedroom," she said.
> Yes ma'am, he said.
And that was where we stop caring about their POV for a bit.
Hard cut.
Door closes.
Slime wins.
Move on.
---
2. Diagon Alley – Redheads & Bad First Impressions
Severus had never gone through the Floo alone before.
It turned out to feel exactly the same as going with his mother, except there was no one to glare at the people who glared at him.
"Leaky Cauldron!" he shouted as he threw the powder.
Whoosh. Green fire. Spinning. Stumbling out into the dim pub with ash in his hair.
He brushed himself off, hunched his shoulders, and limped quickly toward the brick wall.
Tap, tap, tap in the remembered pattern.
The bricks shifted, grinding back into an arch.
And there it was.
Diagon Alley.
It never got old.
Even under the grey sky, with the crowd half-obscuring shop signs, it felt like stepping into the part of the world that had decided to be interesting on purpose.
Severus stepped through, clutching his list like a shield.
His plan was simple:
1. Walk the Alley.
2. Memorize everything.
3. Try not to look like he was memorizing everything.
He drifted with the crowd, eyes flicking to signs.
Madam Malkin's – robes. Already been. Next.
Flourish and Blotts – books. Good. Important.
Slug & Jiggers – potions. Home.
He slowed near the window there, nose almost pressed to the glass.
Newt eyes floating in jars. Shiny brass scales. A set of cauldrons that weren't dented.
He wanted all of it.
He had enough coins for maybe a spoon.
With effort, he peeled himself away and kept going.
Halfway down the Alley, near a shop selling telescopes and absolutely unnecessary gold-plated hourglasses, he heard raised voices.
Not angry.
Arguing-in-public voices.
"I still think this is all some sort of prank," a girl said. "Or a cult."
"Tuney," another girl said, "you saw the letters. Professor McGonagall turned into a cat on the sofa."
"She could be a very convincing con artist," the first one muttered. "Or a criminal. Or both."
Severus' curiosity, which was a nosy little monster, yanked him sideways.
Two girls stood near a bench, half-blocked by a group of adults arguing over a set of cauldrons.
One was younger, red hair so bright it looked like a spell, green eyes wide as she stared at everything.
Lily.
He knew without needing an introduction.
The other was older. Same sharp features in a more pinched configuration, blonde hair pulled back so tight it might have squeaked, lips thin with disapproval.
Petunia.
He'd heard the names in passing in Cokeworth. Daughters of "those nice Evans people up on the better street."
He had never been this close.
Lily spun slowly in place, eyes fixed on a stack of self-stirring cauldrons like they were holy relics.
"This is amazing," she breathed. "Tuney, look! It's all real."
Petunia kept her arms folded so tightly her knuckles were white.
"It's filthy," Petunia said. "And dangerous. And smells like… like chemicals and bird droppings."
"That's the apothecary," Lily said. "And the owl shop. And magic."
She said the word like it mattered.
Severus hovered a few feet away, dying to say something.
He tried to picture himself walking over. Introducing himself. Saying something clever about cauldron types or Hogwarts.
His brain supplied, instead, You're pretty and I know the word for potion scales in Latin in that exact order.
He nearly walked away out of sheer secondhand embarrassment.
A display of telescopes chose that moment to wobble.
One at the top tottered, slipped, and dropped straight toward Lily's head.
She didn't see it.
Severus moved before he thought.
"Finite!" he snapped, wand out, slashing his wrist the way his mother had drilled into him.
The falling telescope stopped an inch from Lily's hair.
It hovered there, trembling.
She froze.
Petunia yelped.
Severus' heart did terrible things.
"Um," he said brilliantly.
He lowered his wand and guided the telescope back to its stand, very aware of Petunia's narrowed eyes and Lily's round ones.
"Blasted display," he muttered. "They never anchor them properly."
Smooth. So smooth.
Lily blinked, then grinned.
"You're a wizard," she said, like she'd just discovered a rare beetle.
He flushed. "Obviously."
Her grin widened. "I mean— I know we're all wizards here, but you're my age. Maybe. Are you? I— sorry, that was rude."
Petunia stepped in front of her slightly, like a shield.
"Who are you?" she demanded. "And why are you waving a stick at my sister?"
"It's a wand," Severus said, stung. "And I wasn't waving, I was stopping that from cracking her head open."
He jerked his chin toward the telescope.
Lily's eyes followed. "That was going to hit me?"
"Yes," he said. "You're welcome."
"Thank you," she said, immediately, elbowing Petunia lightly.
Petunia did not say thank you.
"I've seen you before," Lily said, head tilted. "You live near the river."
He swallowed. "Spinner's End," he said. "The row of houses near the factory. You live…"
"On the hill," Lily said. "Third house past the big tree. Mum says the river district is 'no place for girls to wander.'"
She did a posh voice on the last bit.
He snorted a laugh before he could stop himself.
Petunia's eyes narrowed further.
"So you have been watching us," she said.
He froze.
"I— I live near there," he said defensively. "You aren't exactly invisible, you know. The swings are right by the path."
Lily's cheeks went a bit pink.
Petunia's went sharp.
"We don't need boys spying on us," she said.
"I wasn't—" he started.
"You kind of were," Lily said, but she didn't sound angry. Just amused. "You kept looking like you wanted to say something and then running away again."
"I did not run," he said, outraged.
"You scuttled," she corrected.
He scowled.
Petunia made a noise somewhere between a scoff and a "hmph."
"So," Lily said, undeterred, "you go to Hogwarts too?"
"Not yet," he said. "This September. First year."
"Same!" she said. "I only got my letter three weeks ago. Tuney thinks it's all a plot."
"It could be," Petunia muttered. "For all we know, they'll boil you in a cauldron and sell your hair."
"They won't boil her," Severus said automatically. "Students are expensive. They only do that to criminals."
Lily laughed.
Petunia stared at him. "You are not helping."
He sniffed. "It's a school, not a cult. They sort you by personality, not sacrifice."
Lily's eyes went huge. "They do what?"
"The Sorting," he said, a little pleased to be the one with information. "Houses. Slytherin, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff. They put a hat on your head and it reads your mind."
Lily's mouth fell open. "A hat reads your mind?"
"Yes," he said. "And then it announces your entire psyche to the room."
"Like a party trick," Petunia said dryly.
"Like a diagnosis," Severus said.
"Which one are you going to be in?" Lily asked, stepping closer, eyes shining.
"Slytherin," he said without hesitation.
Petunia's nose wrinkled. "That sounds slimy."
"It's not," he said. "It's… cunning. Ambition. Power. We get things done while everyone else is giving speeches about fairness."
Lily thought about that.
"It sounds a bit slimy," she said, but there was no real bite in it.
He bristled anyway. "And you?"
"I don't know," she said honestly. "What are the others like?"
He rattled them off. "Gryffindor: idiots with courage. Ravenclaw: clever but annoying. Hufflepuff: loyal and depressed. Slytherin: best."
She snorted. "That's very unbiased."
"Best," he repeated.
"And do all Slytherins have greasy hair and glare at everyone?" Petunia asked sweetly.
He flushed all the way to his ears.
Lily elbowed her. "Tuney."
"What?" Petunia said. "If we're comparing stereotypes—"
"We don't have to," Lily said.
Severus shoved his hair back, suddenly very aware of it.
"I'm Severus," he said stiffly. "Snape."
"Lily Evans," she said, sticking her hand out without thinking.
He stared at it like it might explode.
Then, awkwardly, he shook it.
Her skin was warm. There was a faint sting of accidental magic in her grip, like she hadn't quite learned how to pack it away yet.
Petunia watched that handshake as if it had personally offended her.
"Petunia," she said finally. "Evans. Lily's normal sister."
Severus' mouth moved faster than his sense.
"Normal is relative," he said.
Her eyes flashed. "What is that supposed to mean."
He backpedaled. "Just… you're here, aren't you? In a magic alley."
"Against my will," she said. "Mum and Dad didn't want Lily to come alone. And 'Professor McGonagall' insisted on meeting us in person."
She said the professor's name in a perfect mimic of McGonagall's clipped accent. It was actually impressive.
"She's around here somewhere," Lily added, stretching to peer over the crowd. "She told us to wait by the bench while she checks on something at the bookshop. Said there was 'another student' from our area."
Severus' stomach did that stupid flip it did whenever good things tried to happen to him.
"From Cokeworth," Lily continued.
They both looked at him at the same time.
His ears went hot.
"…Oh," Lily said, grin spreading. "It's you."
Petunia's expression said: of course it is.
"Professor McGonagall knows your mother," Lily added. "She said Eileen Prince was one of her better students."
Severus tried very hard not to preen.
"She said that?" he asked.
Lily nodded. "She said some nonsense about 'sharpness wasted on the Muggle world.' Tuney didn't like that part."
"Because it was rude," Petunia said.
"It was accurate," Severus blurted.
Then winced.
Lily snorted.
Petunia's eyes narrowed into slits.
"You're very quick to insult the 'Muggle world' for someone whose shoes have holes," she said.
He glanced down.
Yes, they did.
He lifted his chin. "I'd rather have holes in my shoes than holes in my imagination."
Lily made a strangled sound that might have been a laugh she was trying to hide.
Petunia looked personally attacked.
"Girls," a familiar crisp voice cut in. "Mr Snape."
Professor McGonagall appeared out of the crowd like she'd materialised from sheer disapproval. Neat tartan, perfect bun, expression suggesting she'd caught at least three rule violations just walking over here.
"Ma'am," Severus said, standing straighter.
"Mr Snape," she said with a small nod. "I see you've met Miss Evans."
"Both of them," he said, before his brain could stop him.
Petunia bristled. "We were accosted by a boy with a wand and no sense of boundaries."
"He prevented a falling item from colliding with your sister's skull," McGonagall said dryly. "I would categorize that under 'basic safety.'"
Petunia muttered something that sounded like "cult" under her breath.
Lily stepped in quickly. "Professor, did you know he lives near us? In Cokeworth?"
"I was aware," McGonagall said. "It's part of why I asked your parents to allow you a trip today. I thought it might be… useful… for the three of you to meet before September."
Severus tried not to look like "useful" was the best word anyone had ever applied to him.
"We'll be on the same train?" Lily asked.
"Yes," McGonagall said. "The Hogwarts Express. You depart from King's Cross, platform nine and three-quarters. I trust you all remember the instructions."
"Yes, Professor," Lily said.
"Yes, ma'am," Severus said.
Petunia did not say anything.
McGonagall's sharp eyes flicked between them.
"Now," she said, a hint of dryness finally sneaking into her tone, "I will finish acquiring Miss Evans' books. Mr Snape, as your mother could not accompany you today, you may shadow us if you wish. It may be… informative."
Shadow us was McGonagall for "you look like you need someone to keep you from getting mugged by a bad cauldron sale."
Severus nodded quickly. "Yes, Professor."
Lily lit up. "You know where everything is, right? You can show us."
He tried to play it cool.
"Yes," he said, like he hadn't memorized every shop window since he was nine. "I know the Alley."
Petunia rolled her eyes. "Wonderful. A tour from the River Rat."
He flushed. "You don't have to—"
"I want to," Lily said over him. "Mum'll be thrilled I met someone from school already."
Petunia's mouth tightened, but she didn't argue. Her parents would probably be thrilled. That was the worst part.
McGonagall gave them all a Look that said, in fluent Teacher, please don't make me separate you like toddlers inside a potion shop, then gestured toward Flourish and Blotts.
"Books first," she said. "Then potions. Then we'll discuss owls."
Lily half-bounced.
Severus pretended not to, but his feet moved a bit faster.
Petunia stalked alongside them like a suspicious chaperone, eyes sharp on every wand in sight.
They disappeared into the crowd together.
Back in Spinner's End, two floors up, in a bedroom with thin walls, Eileen Snape made a very different set of bad decisions with a very enthusiastic slime.
But that?
That's for the fade-to-black part of your brain to fill in.
Next stop: redheads in the Snape kitchen, and Nico pouncing on the most magic-starved girl in the room.