Chapter 3
Oct. 2, 1975 — 9:23 a.m.
Severus wiped a sweaty, damp strand of hair off his forehead. He didn’t want to get up; his legs felt sore and the bed offered his body warmth, and he hadn’t had a chance to sleep in and rest in what felt like years. He had a mountain of tasks to get through, and things would get ugly if he didn’t have them taken care of, only adding to his procrastination. Severus reluctantly rose, his skin tingling with gooseflesh courtesy of the morning cold. He knelt down, bleary eyed, to sift through the contents of his trunk, taking out his toothbrush, toothpaste, and his mother’s wooden hairbrush. He headed to the bathroom, splashed his face with cold water, and then ran the tub—stopping to look at himself in the mirror mounted above the sink. There were faint scratches of where tree branches caught his face and his eyebags seemed to have deepened, giving him a sunken, sickly look. Severus snapped his head away from the mirror.
He went back to the bedroom to sort his trunk’s contents: Ziploc bags of wildflowers and herbs—Severus had started bringing Ziplocs in his third year to forage the potential potion ingredients bordering the edge of the Forbidden Forest—a few extra vials, his cauldron and scales, his Potion ingredients kit, a crudely sewn rectangular pouch, schoolbooks, his assignments (he always salvaged the parchment), and a paper folder stuffed with elegant, broken wax seal envelopes, which Severus wistfully ran his fingers over before shoving the folder inside the last drawer (where it would be out of sight) and to Severus’ horror, a smashed vial at the bottom smearing itself and the trunk with a dark, mud-like substance. His heart sank at the sight of his smashed Polyjuice. Severus had gotten a letter in the middle of summer from Lucius asking him for Polyjuice, and the ingredients were in a separate parcel waiting to be delivered should Severus accept the offer. Lucius said he was to be paid in whatever leftover ingredients were left after brewing the potion, but Severus decided to keep a vial of the Polyjuice. Lucius wouldn’t have noticed. Lucius only cared that Severus didn’t ask too many questions and didn’t tell anyone.
Severus snatched his wand from the nightstand and mended the vial, then scooped what he managed to the potion back in easily; it had the consistency of thick mud. Realizing he didn’t have anything to wipe the outside of the vial with, he set it on the table. Polyjuice loses its potency when in contact with spells—including the mended vial, and Severus didn’t want to do any more damage. The once four-hour-effective Polyjuice most probably lost an hour or half.
Severus ran back to the tub—which hadn’t overflowed, to his relief—and peeled off his nightwear. He draped everything that was on his person over the toilet lid, and then furiously scrubbed himself. Severus allowed himself five minutes to rest his not-as-sore legs in the hot water for a little more. He squeezed the water out of his hair and then spelled himself dry. Severus dressed himself in Muggle attire, wearing his faded jumper and showing-above-the-ankles trousers. His Tempus told him it was 9:43 a.m. Severus went back to the bedroom and piled his schoolbooks on the dresser, balanced his scales on top of his cauldron and left the bedroom to set it on the sitting room’s coffee table. He went back to his bedroom, pocketed his wand, and took out parchment, a quill, and an ink jar.
Severus set everything on the coffee table, then crossed the room to the kitchen and properly examined it. He missed the oven on the side yesterday and opened each cabinet—there was silverware, a fine China dinnerware set, there were even pots and pans and a ladle and spatulas, from wooden and metal, and three cauldrons.
‘Too small t’use,’ he said disappointedly, and then shook his head to shake out his Cokeworth accent.
Severus took out a glass and an apple from the fridge, then sank into the soft armchair. He began to scribble things he would need, and things he needed to get done.
Ward (?)
Napkins
Polyjuice (?)
Though the tent was fairly small on the outside, with a passcode warding system, and was far enough from both the hole in the wall and greatly farther from the Hogwarts grounds, someone could still find it, though L—Merlin (a habit he tried hard to rid himself of) knows who prances about the bloody Forbidden Forest. I do, he grimaced. The Passcode Ward would be effective against those who didn’t know the password, but people could still see the tent. An idea popped in his head and he ran and got a silver knife from the kitchen.
The wind ruffled his hair as ducked his head through the tent flap. Severus breathed a lungful of dewy grass, momentarily admiring the Forbidden Forest’s beauty, and then raised his knife against the fabric of the tent.
The knife bounced away. Severus tried again, he tried slicing and firm pushing down, but the tent would not tear. He slipped his wand out of his trouser pocket.
‘Diffindo!’
It didn’t make any difference. Satisfied, Severus went back inside. Maybe an Unplottable sort of ward, or an invisibility ward, or perhaps something that discreetly sends people away just as Hogwarts does to Muggles. He wrote his notes down next to the Ward (?) on the parchment. The second he could tackle quite easily, but the problem was that there were no Muggle convenience stores anywhere around. He scribbled on the parchment.
Severus chucked his apple core in the small rubbish bin. As for his Polyjuice, he had a limited supply and even with his improved, twenty-four-day version instead of a month’s worth of brewing, it would set him back considerably. Severus decided it would be best to dilute the potion, so as to not work as strongly when transforming his facial to features. He’d have more potion that way, and less chances of awkward situations where someone would recognize the person he was Polyjuiced as. Severus ran to get his new Advanced Potion-Making textbook and Magical Drafts and Potions. He was excited to experiment with N.E.W.T. level potions, but for now he needed to dilute the Polyjuice. All he needed was water and an inhibitor, though that proved to be difficult, as all ingredients that had potential to be inhibitors would tamper with the potion and Severus did not want to take any risks. The book gave him an idea—honeysuckle surely grew in the Forbidden Forest, and it acts as an inhibitor to many weak poisons, meaning it would be effective against Polyjuice if handled properly.
Severus left the sitting room and was sifting through the drawers. He took out a few Ziploc bags, the pouch, and his treasured cashmere muffler. It was his first birthday gift from Lucius when Severus was a first-year. It was a dark royal blue muffler, which Lucius had explained to him that it would stretch itself without any wear or tear as he grew to suit his figure and would keep him warm based on how cold he was. He never owned something so elegantly brilliant and had only worn it in the dormitory out of fear that Potter and his minions would ruin it. It wouldn’t have been the first time they destroyed something he couldn’t afford to replace—or something so deeply valuable to him.
He put on the muffler, which immediately warped and stretched and warmed his neck and upper torso. He slipped the pouch and the Ziploc bags into the pocket that wasn’t his wand’s. Severus narrowed his eyes, trying to determine where he flung his shoes last night and found them at the corner of the second bed. He put on his shoes and left through the tent flap, putting a temporary Sticking Charm on it. His nonverbal Tempus told him it was 10:05 a.m. Severus made a mental note to return no later than eleven-thirty.
His shoulders relax and his brows unfurrowed as Severus breathed in the earthy, damp air. Severus held his wand and circled the tent a few times to decide which way to go. There were haphazardly placed trees on all sides, and he decided to pick the oak with a bird’s nest on its lower branches. Severus ventured through the shrubbery, wand in hand, scanning the area for potential ingredients.
He soon found himself in the deep, earthy part of the Forest, and though it was day and the obscured sun was shining overhead the treetops were so thick and leafy the sunrays couldn’t penetrate through. He had to concentrate on casting a particularly strong Lumos. Despite the growing unease that settled in his gut, he had to admire the haunting beauty—the dark, lush beauty of the forest. The forest was as dangerous as it was alluring, with vivid florae poking out of the damp earth and an occasional creature scuttling about. The trees were warped as though they all wanted to braid their branches into one another.
Severus nearly jumped out of his skin as he stepped on something soft, but it was only, rather, they were only mushrooms. Field mushrooms, he noted. Severus bent down and pressed his index finger onto each of the mushrooms he had not just stepped on, as those were a little mushy and near useless. He took out a Ziploc and put in the mushrooms that were firm and springy, then continued. As Severus further stumbled through the thicket of shrubbery, his nerves started to get the better of him—what if he wasted a precious day unproductively foraging for a plant that wasn’t there?
There was a small pond with a thin path. Severus eyed the frogspawn at the edges, then slowly crouched down and took out the flimsily sewn pouch, opening the small triangular flap at the top to rummage through the makeshift tools he brought. He took out his measuring spoons, scooped some of the frogspawn, carefully dumping each tablespoon into—he didn’t particularly care for slimy hands and a slimy wand—a Ziploc bag. and peered at his reflection, self-consciously moving strands of hair to cover his face. An inexplicable wave of sadness had washed over him.
He did not know when the off-and-on sadness had started, only that it was before Hogwarts and after his father lost his job at the mill. It was confusing at first, especially at times when there wasn’t anything to distract him or any imminent danger—like when his father was sleeping and Eileen was trying to make the most of whatever it was she was trying to make a meal out of. He didn’t understand why he felt sad then. And truth be told, he still doesn’t, only that he could distract himself with something. The sadness had intensified in his first year at Hogwarts, too. It was more frequent in the evenings and weekends. Severus would feel miserable and lose his appetite and not want to talk to anyone. He remembered Lily, who would be very upset whenever he isolated himself and assumed he just didn’t want to talk to her. He opened his eyes as widely as he could to dry them, but there was little he could do for the heavy weight in his stomach. Severus unsteadily stood up and spelled his measuring spoons dry.
The trees thinned and light seeped through the leaf canvas above, so Severus could see a little better—and that was when he saw them. Sticking to an ominously sticky part of a tree were three pure white hairs. Severus sprinted to the tree, set down the Ziplocs he was awkwardly holding, and carefully picked up each hair with shaking fingers, and put them into a Ziploc bag, spelling it to firmly seal. Severus brought the bag up to his face to inspect it and found that the hairs were indeed Unicorn tail hairs. His skin was jumping with excitement—these went for ten Galleons a hair, and here he had three… thirty Galleons, all for him to spend. Severus searched the area, but there weren’t any other hairs.
Severus panicked for a moment and then immediately calmed after recognizing a cluster of wildflowers snapping at his heels as he passed by. His excitement was short-lived however, as Severus remembered he still didn’t have an inhibitor to dilute the Polyjuice and nothing to mix it in with. Severus also realized he had limited time to sell the hairs and his stomach squirmed—he would need to go out. He wondered if he should charm his hair a different colour, or even bolder, attempt to transfigure some of his face. Severus decided against the latter, thinking he would spare himself a facial disfigurement so early on in his… newfound independence.
He let out a sigh of relief once he saw the tent and jogged back. He tugged at the flap, momentarily forgetting the ward he had in place.
‘Bleeding-heart,’ he said, raising the flap.
Severus tossed his toolkit pouch on the kitchen table and put the Ziplocs in the fridge. He set a small barrier separating the top part (containing the potion ingredients) and the bottom (containing food) to avoid taste and scent contamination and freezer burn.
Severus kept the unicorn tail hairs with him. Perhaps he could find some inexperienced, too-zealous apothecary assistant that would be so excited to get their hands on unicorn hair they’d pay more—or maybe he could charm the hairs gold and cut them in half to parade them as foal hairs, which sold for almost thrice as much—with unicorns, the younger, the better. The younger, the purer, the more innocent. Severus envied the creatures. Fast enough to outrun most predators, werewolves included, blessed with beauty and grace, revered as pure, untainted, whole creatures. How Severus envied the bloody horned horses.
Severus went to the bathroom to spell his shoes and clothes clean. He had limited time and should make the most of today, and he planned on using the Floo available in the post office. He contemplated what he should go as when it struck him: a Potioneer’s errand boy. Yes, he could pose as that, they were nothing worth paying attention to and it was common for them to be discreet and secretive—no Potioneer worth his salt revealed anything before it was officially published. Law waters were muddied if anything got out before official publishing. He stood in front of the mirror and pointed his wand at his hair, spelling it clean thrice so it wasn’t as oily and just looked dry. He went back to the bedroom to flip through his spellbooks, until he found a Colour-Changing Charm. Severus was not half bad at charms, but he still paled in comparison to Lily. But Lily was brilliant and bright and everyone paled in comparison to her.
Severus’ hair was now flaxen-hued and he decided to make the heavy decision of cutting it. He was a deft hand at severing charms, and he was surprised to see the chunks of hair that were cut off darkening back to his black shade. His hair was now fair and tufted just an inch or two below his ears. Blonde suited him horribly. Severus hurried in his preparations as it was eleven forty, and he wanted to go while the lunch hour was at its prime: twelve something o’clock.
Severus’ legs felt numb as he hurried over to the bedroom and took out his school robes from the dresser. He took the shabbier robe and waved his wand to rip the Slytherin coat of arms and the green lining, leaving it quite ugly. With difficulty, he turned the robe taupe and pulled it on.
When Severus was dressed and ready, he took a final look of himself in the bathroom mirror and his eyebrows flew to his hair. In front of him was a boy with blonde, frizzing hair, his sharp, large dark eyes seeming wary, and his shabby robe’s pockets were filled with a mixture of items: Ziploc bags (filled and unfilled), his wand, a lumpy drawstring pouch, and in his hand, a Raspberry-Lemon sweet. Severus pulled at his facial muscles a bit more, to fill out his cheeks and at the same time raise and arch his eyebrows. Fine. Good enough.
He unwrapped the sweet and let it dissolve in his mouth, savouring the sweet tartness of the raspberry and the sour acidity of the lemon, and then left the tent trembling.
‘Ts’fine,’ he said to himself out loud. ‘Back in’n hour.’
He quickly walked into the spot he marked as the hole-in-the-wall’s pathway and was already hyperventilating. Severus repeated a Muggle woman’s shopping list that he overheard once while outside Diagon Alley and he’d been repeating it and imagining her picking out the ingredients ever since to help calm himself down.
‘“Tunnock’s Teacakes, a dozen eggs,’ he ducked a curling, thick oak branch as it grazed his ear, ‘pickled plums, er… milk, cheese, cabbage…’ he could see the wall now, ‘apricots if available, marmalade if on sale…”’
Severus Disillusioned himself and stepped out into the chilly October morning, running over his own shopping list in his head. No time to waste. He sprinted into the village, sticking to the backs of buildings and sneaking glances at shop names until he saw the post office and quietly slinked towards the entrance, taking the spell off himself and tugging on his hood to cover himself before entering.
He nodded his head in acknowledgement to the clerk and slid him ten Knuts, then walked over to the fireplace and grabbed a pinch of the Floo powder on the mantle.
‘Diagon Alley!’
Severus stumbled out later, clutching his pockets and his heart swelling. Severus pushed down the growing ball of excitement and anxiety wriggling in his gut and turned north to the apothecary. He only needed to sell a few mushrooms and the hairs. He made towards Slug & Jiggers’, the bell ringing as he opened the door. Severus tried to make his stride purposeful and set down the Ziplocs that he was now self-conscious of bringing on the counter.
‘Adult unicorn tail hair,’ he swallowed, voice high pitched, ‘common field mushrooms.’
The shopkeeper drew his lips in a tight line. ‘Thirty Galleons and three Sickles.’
He snatched the money from the shopkeeper’s hands and shoved the coins into the pouch. Please don’t talk to me. Don’t start any small talk. Keep inspecting the hairs.
‘Do you…’ he swallowed, and the shopkeeper raised an eyebrow. ‘Honeysuckle—flowers, as many as three Sickles can buy.
Severus sighed when he was finally outside. Shivering slightly, clutching jars full of honeysuckle flowers and nectar, he walked past a few shops with his head down. Even if it wasn’t a Hogsmeade weekend, he couldn’t risk it. ‘Paranoid arse,’ Black had once sneered in Potions a little earlier in the year when Severus swept past him, his wand out.
He shook his head and took out his wand and pointed it at the two wizards in front of him. He had to do this quickly because it was a stupid and risky and un-Slytherin thing to do.
‘Diffindo,’ he whispered.
From each stranger, a single hair drifted towards him; one blonde, one brown, respectively. Severus spelled the hairs with an anti-Featherweight Charm (originally a jinx he improvised in his fourth year) so they wouldn’t fly out of his pocket. Severus ran through the mental list of things he needed while heading to what was considered Diagon Alley’s fashion street, setting his eyes on the second-hand robes lined inside one of the shops—he wouldn’t wear any of them while in the forest, but he needed them if he was to leave the tent under the guise of Polyjuice—and decided on a whim as to which robes to buy. Severus entered and left holding two frayed green robes and eleven Sickles less.
He walked into Flourish and Blotts and had an impulse to splurge on books, but he already stole a few, and it would’ve been a waste to buy any more. Severus walked out with his left pocket considerably lighter and clutching a Bludger-sized tome to his chest.
Severus waited for the clerk to tally his total at the general supplies store as he entertained the idea of leaving a note for his mother. He certainly wouldn’t do it, but he wondered what would he write in it if he did. He recalled what was supposed to be a piece of advice from his mother as he slid the clerk the coins and left the store.
Platform nine and three-quarters buzzed with life. Severus had never seen anything like it, having grown up in bleak, lifeless Cokeworth. He was excited; he was going to be a wizard, he was going to Hogwarts, and he and Lily were going to be Slytherins and mingle with the Purebloods—who will surely accept Severus as their own, as Severus was half Prince. He voiced his thoughts to his mother.
‘Half Prince and half Muggle,’ she said dismissively, signalling the end of the conversation. Perhaps she noticed the way children all around her were excitedly talking to their own mothers, who were conversing back, because she tugged Severus back and knelt down.
‘Severus,’ she began, and her voice was softer, worried. ‘what you must never, ever do is think of what is forbidden to you. Because what you think, you do.’
Severus nodded. Eileen smiled, but it wasn’t exactly for Severus; a mother who had just let her son roam around smiled approvingly at her. Like old times, like when she was still Eileen Prince.
‘Ma. Y’can let go now,’ Severus pulled his arm away.
Eileen made a sad face. ‘You don’t want to be seen with me? Are you ashamed of your mother? It’s because of the Evans girl, isn’t it?’
‘No, Ma.’
‘Don’t lie to me. And get rid of that godawful accent, you silly boy.’
Severus felt uncomfortable. Ma just felt bad he was leaving her with Tobias. Maybe he could ask Dumbledore to hire her, so she would be with him at Hogwarts and away from Tobias. He had to make Ma proud. He remembered her telling him about the Noble houses.
‘Ma, I see someone from the Rosier line. I would like to make a good impression.’
In truth, Severus had no idea there was a Rosier there, but he said to make Eileen happy. Before entering the post office, shrunk everything and pocketed his purchases. Nobody was at the counter (which Severus was relieved about) so he disillusioned himself and Flooed back.
Severus realized the reason nobody was at Diagon’s post office was because both offices were on lunch break. He used Alohomora on the door and jogged back to the wall, through the hole, and to the clearing.
He set down the paper bag and his book on the table and went to the bedroom to set down the robes and change. It was only one-forty-three, so after tidying up Severus set his cauldron on the stove and readied the ingredients: the vial of Polyjuice, one honeysuckle head, half a cup of honeysuckle nectar, and his potion kit. Severus cracked the glass vial against the marble counter (akin to cracking an egg) and scraped out the Polyjuice that clung to the glass, carefully picking out the shards. Once the water started to boil, he stirred and slowly added the nectar, stopping once it fully dissolved in the solution and then adding the head. He left the cauldron to simmer and examine the tome.
It was an ancient, fragile thing; Severus accidentally tore the side of the first page. He flipped through the pages until he found one containing a sort of repulsion charm to steer away unwelcome company. There were instructions on alteration and removal, too. Severus got up and got to work.
He was supposed to set a perimeter to indicate the area he wanted charmed using an unfamiliar incantation, though after searching for the symbols in his Ancient Runes textbook the characters were not as difficult and were easier to say. Severus was then supposed to repeat the invocations until a halo of light glowed around the area and dimmed.
After setting the ward—which took two hours of his time—Severus was exhausted and wanted to rest, but the timer he spelled rang and he had to check on his Polyjuice. Yawning, he drew his wand and peeked inside. It was a dark, smoky grey, and after dipping his stirring stick into the watery potion to dissolve any lumps. Satisfied, he took the cauldron off the unlit stove, his stomach pressing against the buttons, and put it on the counter.
While his stomach dug into the knobs, he accidentally turned one and snatched his arm away with a shriek. None of the potion spilled when he jerked his arm away, but a part of his sleeve caught on fire and burned his arm. Severus’ eyes pricked with tears as he quickly turned off the stove and set a timer, then squeezed his burned arm. He didn’t know what to do, exactly, so he went to the bathroom to wash it and then go to bed despite it only being four-fifteen p.m. As he lay down, facing the ceiling, sleep slipped away from him from the sudden spikes of throbbing pain in his outer forearm and from recalling the lake incident. He shut his eyes and drew in deep breaths— tomorrow he would have to buy something for his arm and tomorrow his Polyjuice would be ready.