Chapter 1
Cokeworth was just as the name suggested, a grimy town full of working class people. A pureblood wizard’s nightmare. Though there did reside three magic folk in the town. Eileen Prince, a pureblood from a formerly revered family, fallen from grace when she chose to marry the muggle Tobias Snape. Their son, Severus Snape. And a red-headed girl by the name of Lily Evans.
But for now we’ll focus on Eileen. A deeply troubled woman, she had been bubbly and happy (shocking) when she first came across Tobias Snape and she fell head over heels for him and married him after just three months. Tobias Snape sucked the life out of her, and eventually, their son, Severus.
They were clearly an unhappy family, Eileen and Severus always covered in various bruises in marks from Tobias’s assault. He was an angry, violent man. And Severus spent most days wandering around the town, there was nothing to do and nowhere to go besides a broken old playset that seemed to give you a splinter for even walking near it.
Severus would carry his mother’s old school books with him and read them on the outskirts of towns, the big open fields that hadn’t fallen victim to industrialism quite yet. He had learned to be quiet, he was an observer, a passive entity, never seeming to actually experience life but more so float by in it.
On his various nights spent in these fields and trees, he spotted a curly red-headed girl, always accompanied by a taller blonde girl, sisters, he deduced. And after more observation he realized the red-head was magical, just like him. She was muggle-born, a soul so powerful even though she had not been born to magic, she still had it. He interacted with them before, the blonde one called him a freak and mocked his clothes (which were his mother’s old clothes, for the record) and tried to pull her sister away from him. But as soon as the girl laid eyes on Severus, she was curious.
—
Severus was doing as he would on most days, lounging just by the treeline, reading his mother’s old books, jotting down notes and memorizing everything said in the books when he saw the red-headed girl from a distance, for once she was by herself and she was approaching him. He stared, frozen, until she was right in front of him.
“Hello,” She stated simply, giving a sort of curtsey in her stained dress. Her hair was pulled into a loose ponytail and strands of hair were flopping everywhere, she had dirt smudged on her face, or maybe coal dust, her father might have been a miner. The only dazzling thing about her was the necklace she was wearing, a gold star of David, probably a family heirloom. Severus stared at the necklace, his father was Jewish, making him Jewish as well, he knew his paternal grandmother, she was a kind woman and he loved her and how she made Judaism feel. But whenever he remembered his father was Jewish he tried to separate himself, a sort of tug of war with his own identity.
“I’m Lily Evans.” The girl - Lily, told him as she sat down beside him. “What’s your name?”
Severus stared at her for a moment, debating on whether or not he could trust her, but ultimately he gave in. “Severus.” Lily nodded, seemingly unfazed by his short, straight-to-the-point answer.
“You were talking about magic, you said I’m a witch. I don’t think you meant it in a mean way, so I’m sorry about how me and Tunie reacted. But what did you mean?”
Lily had turned to look at Severus, her emerald eyes glistening with curiosity her face didn’t seem to convey. Severus gave her a small, close-lipped smile before he let forth anything and everything he knew about the wizarding world. The two talked for hours, Lily asking more than enough questions to annoy the average person but Severus didn’t care, it gave him more time to talk about a world he so longed to be a part of but wasn’t able to because of his father. It had been around nine in the morning when they’d started talking and only when the sun started to set a whole ten hours later did they finally say goodbye to each other, promising to meet again the next morning to pick right back up where their conversation had left off.
As promised, the next morning at half-past seven, the two met up again and launched back into their conversation, Severus had brought along a few of his mother’s old school books and showed them to Lily, who was incredibly fascinated. At around one in the afternoon Lily suddenly stopped talking and Severus looked over at her.
“We have to eat lunch, Severus!” She exclaimed, and indeed, the two had both forgotten about lunch, just like the previous day. Though it was quite easy to forget lunch as they both came from families that were constantly struggling to even put one meal on the table, let alone three that average houses had.
Lily reached into the pockets of the dress she was wearing and pulled out a sandwich cut in two triangles. “Peanut butter, i don’t really like jelly or jam or any of that, sorry.” She told him as she handed him a half of it, it had been wrapped in a cloth that was most likely cut from an old towel. Severus stared at the half of the sandwich in his hand for a moment before looking back at Lily, “Thank you.”
“Of course!”
That’s what had marked the start of their friendship, and like Severus had told her, a year and a half later, a strangely dressed woman (what Severus explained to Lily were witches robes) named Professor McGonagall showed up to the Evans’ household on January 30th, her eleventh birthday and explained to her family that she was a witch, and gave minimal information about the wizarding world. Bidding farewell with the address on how to get to Diagon Alley, and a letter marking everything she’d need, with a reminder that the upcoming school year started on September 1st.
The first thing Lily did after McGonagall had left was put on her father’s jacket and run straight to Severus’s house, despite it being near ten in the night, and knock on his window until he opened it. Instead of greeting each other, Severus simply helped pull Lily through the window sill and into his small bedroom that also doubled as storage for the house, the only thing in the room that belonged to him was a mattress on the floor.
Lily tackled him once she was inside and then showed him her letter once she had him pinned down, his eyes lit up and he rolled out from under her to reach under his mattress, showing Lily his own letter. Lily squeaked and tackled him into a hug where they both lay for around five minutes, not making noises as they were both well aware what Tobias would do if he heard them.
“Sev,” Lily whispered when she broke apart from the hug, “It’s really happening, we’re going to Hogwarts!” Her voice was excited but hushed, something Severus was grateful for and he just smiled and nodded at her.
For a while the two just sat in silence smiling, occasionally giggling when they made eye contact, they were just so giddy, so happy that they’d finally be able to go off to Hogwarts.
“Tell me about the houses again, Sev.” Lily whispered as she zipped her jacket up, Severus knew that she was telling him to come outside with her. Over the past year they’d collected stray boards and sticks and put together a small sort of hideout around a hollow tree in the forest and that’s where they would spend most of their days — and sometimes nights. Severus nodded and grabbed the sole blanket from his bed as well as his letter and helped Lily climb back out the window, in return she helped him out of it when it was his turn.
They both giggled and stumbled along, running through the dark streets, weaving behind and in front of the houses, some lit while others weren’t. They knew it wasn’t safe, but their joy was all-consuming and they couldn’t seem to bring it in themselves to care. After five minutes they reached the tree line and managed to slow themselves back into a walk before they finally reached their hideout. They had collected grass, tree needles, leaves, anything they could think of and that's what made up the floor of their hideout. Inside of the hollow tree, hidden by some more sticks was one of Severus’s books. Lily moved to uncover it and grabbed it out eagerly as Severus put the makeshift door over the entrance.
Severus had warned Lily how they weren’t supposed to use magic out of school, but since they weren’t technically in Hogwarts yet, they still did a few small bursts of magic. For example, Lily was focusing for a moment and sending sparks to one of the candles they had stashed in the tree so the two could see their letters. Lily suddenly frowned as they whispered their school lists out to each other.
“Sev?” She questioned in a small voice. “I don’t think I can go to Hogwarts, this is all too much stuff, you talked about the muggle currency to wizard currency conversion. I don’t think we could afford this in either..” Lily sounded defeated and as if all her joy had been stomped out of her in a moment's notice. Severus frowned and pushed some of his hair behind his ear before repeating the action for her.
“There’s always a way, Lils. There’s second hand shops for most of the stuff on the list, the only thing you’d have to buy is your wand, and if you can’t afford everything from the second hand shops we can share my mother’s old books. Hogwarts hasn’t changed the curriculum too much since she attended, or at least the first year curriculum.”
Lily looked up at him, tears glistening in her eyes and she smiled, moving to hug him once more. “Thanks, Sev. But I want to be totally sure I can afford at least the wand, I don’t want to trouble Momma and Poppa too much.”
“We can get jobs, Lils. As long as we hush up about it and lie about our age, most places will turn a blind eye to us being kids, they don’t mind child workers as long as they don’t get in trouble for it. Typical human selfishness, you know.”
The red-headed girl looked back up at him, “Sev, you’re a genius! Then when we’re in Diagon Alley we can turn it into wizarding money and get our wands!”
Severus smiled at her, “The only tough part is figuring out where to work, but there are plenty of places around here that are desperate enough to hire kids. We’d have to walk to work of course but that's fine, we spend most of the days outside anyways so your parents wouldn’t notice because they’d be at work as well! Where should we work?” Lily thought for a moment, biting on part of her thumb while Severus rubbed his fingers together.
After a few minutes Lily’s face lit up, “I got it! We can work at the Rumorland Bar! We can be busboys, you know, picking up the dirty dishes and washing them and all that. We’d probably get tipped a fair amount as well because we’re young and adorable.” She said the last part with a cheesy smile, placing her hands on her face to pose like she was the most innocent thing in the world. Severus snorted, “Yeah, maybe you’d get tipped, I sure wouldn’t.”
Lily frowned at him, “Sev you gotta stop talking down on yourself, we’ve talked about this. You love your mother, right?”
Severus gave her a confused look but nodded. “Well you’re the exact copy of her, so when you talk bad about your looks, you’re also calling your mother ugly. Would you ever say that to her face?”
He shook his head, “My mother is the most beautiful woman alive, but her looks didn’t transfer to me, Lils.” The girl groaned in response to his words.
“I’ll talk sense into you another night, right now I’m tired, let's go to sleep.” Severus nodded as he laid down beside the girl, pulling his blanket over the both of them.
Despite the freezing January air, they fell asleep comfortably. Probably something to do with the magic of friendship (which Lily would call bullshit on) that surrounded their little hide-out. But what it really was, was Eileen Prince, who’d watched Lily and Severus run past the house and sent a small warming charm after the two to make sure they didn’t freeze to death. Tobias had noticed he'd beat her once more for showing magic. But she wouldn’t admit that to the children.
—
The next morning came quickly to the sleeping forms of Lily and Severus, they had woken up within minutes of each other, just past seven in the morning.
“Morning!” Lily greeted when Severus finally woke up, he mumbled a greeting back and rubbed at his eyes. “We should wait until my parents go to work and then we can get some nicer clothes on, don’t you think?”
“We need grown-up clothes so they’ll take us more seriously, or at least we need to clean up.”
Lily nodded vigorously, “Yeah, I don’t know if Tunie will let me borrow a nice dress of hers, she probably won’t but I can still try. But we do need to clean up.” Severus pushed her face away from him.
“And brush our teeth, ew.” Severus told her while dramatically pinching his nose. Lily rolled her eyes and leaned close once more, letting out a deep breath directly into his face.
—
They’d gotten ready in Lily’s house, crammed into the small bathroom, Lily was using the toilet while Severus brushed his teeth right beside her. He spit the toothpaste out into the sink and rinsed the brush off before turning to look at Lily.
“I don’t think you should dress like a lady when we go to get jobs. Ladies get paid less, we can dress you in boys clothes and twist your hair under a cap or something so we get paid the same.” Lily looked at him for a moment, considering the thought as she wiped and flushed the toilet (which only happened to be a new addition to the house, along with all running water). “I think you’re right, Sev.”
Severus then led Lily back to his own house and dug through his fathers old clothes, finding the most suitable ones for them both and then helping braid Lily’s hair and shoving it under an old paperboy cap (which had been his father’s job before Hitler took over germany) and they stared at themselves in the mirror.
Lily was smiling a lot at her reflection, she seemed really happy with herself and her joy rubbed off onto Severus who let out a breathy giggle. “Okay, we have to pick your boy-name.”
“I’ve already decided on Lionel! We can say we’re brothers and they’ll believe it because both Severus and Lionel are uncommon names!”
And with that, their first thought out journey began. They had got the jobs, and kept them until that September when they boarded the Hogwarts Express.