Chapter 10: Homecoming

She couldn’t open her eyes. 

For the first few minutes she thought it was a curse; then she realized her eyelids were already strained open. They fluttered as fast as her racing heartbeat; beating like restless wings of a fly trapped against a web, they could not escape the pitch black before her.

Blind. Was she blind?

The question occurred to her dimly, the same way her other thoughts did, as though she could glimpse at them from behind a veil of gauze. Her senses did not sharpen to compensate for her loss of sight. They felt even more dull by comparison—typical of curse work. She couldn’t hear, nor taste, nor smell. More frighteningly, she lacked the spatial awareness to tell whether she was lying on the ground or secured with her hands behind her back or missing limbs. The sensation of a broom handle gripped in the palm of her hand felt like a distant memory, and she had no idea how much time had elapsed since she was flying through the air, chasing two suspicious characters over the Ionian Sea. She might not have hands or feet and longer. She didn’t feel a body beyond her eyes. She could flutter her eyelids and move her eyeballs in their sockets, and she did both until she felt as though she traversed miles in the dark.

Without warning, the darkness pulled away, all too sudden and painful, and when it did, she ached to pull it back over herself like a blanket.

A court of hooded skeletons surrounded her. They terrified her, draped over furniture as though posed around a king, each more human than the man in their midst. His eyes were an unnatural red, his skin like molded wax. They reached towards him with fear, with longing, with anticipation, with apprehension, human in their need.

She had the urge to reach to her own face, to touch it and ensure it was soft, spongy skin and not hard, smooth bone.

Then she heard them. They scarcely sounded human, their voices were warped by magic so that each sounded distinct but unplaceable. Their speech sounded like beak snapping against bone.

The last vision to flood her sight was those glaring red eyes. 

“My Lord, we have finished questioning the captive.” Of the two bowed figures before Lord Voldemort, one spoke, and their announcement drew the presence of the other eight individuals in the room.

“Ah. The spy,” the Dark Lord crooned. “What have we learned?” His question might have been for anyone’s benefit because half the skulled faces turned towards the woman lying on the table as though she might provide an answer.

“The Ministry did not send her.” The Dark Lord appeared neither surprised nor curious, so the cloaked figure continued, “She has claimed allegiance with…the Order of the Phoenix.”

The Dark Lord laughed, a high-pitched melodious sound. The circle shifted on their feet, but no one joined him. 

“Dumbledore has his own Death Eaters,” he proclaimed at long last. A smile grazed his handsome face. 

The name Dumbledore set the circle on edge. For that moment, they truly looked like they were pulled from their tombs. 

“I have seen to it that the spy has revealed all she knows. She was unable to reveal any additional members of this group. We can be assured she has no idea of their identities—”

“It’ll be the usual band of Dumbledore supporters, no doubt,” another masked figure spoke up. Slim and reed-like, they stepped out of a shadow formed by an unlit torchère. “Elphias Doge, his lapdog. His oafish brother. Tiberius Ogden, Griselda Marchbanks, Madge MacMillan—”

“Dumbledore never chooses the company of anyone who can challenge him. He gravitates towards lackeys and sycophants.” The Dark Lord’s words were laced with venom. “Whom have we here, so far from home?”

“Jane Taylor—”

“A Mudblood?”

“Half-blood.”

“The Prophet’s Weather Witch?”

“—She and Dumbledore belonged to the same…bowling league.” These words snuffed out all whispers. Every head turned itself to Lord Voldemort with bated breath. 

“An insult, then,” the Dark Lord smiled grimly. “I prophesy dark skies ahead for Jane Taylor.” 

None of the ten subordinates dared to speak. Like shadows shrunken by the midday sun, they scattered to the fringes of the opulent room. Three of them returned to the same table on which the witch’s body lay. They paid her person no mind as they sat in chairs at the opposite end and engrossed themselves in an animated conversation about the magic they had witnessed when the witch had appeared, which was a marvel in and of itself because of the powerful, ancient curse protecting the place where they were gathered.

The other seven positioned themselves in Lord Voldemort’s orbit, each vying for a piece of him. Those furthest from presumption placed themselves by the wall of adjacent fireplaces, the grates of which burned bright with blue fire. Ornate tiles of lapis lazuli adorned the floor like lapping water under a domed ceiling where a huge panlong made of gold shone like the sun. The room’s furniture adhered to a gryphon motif, and two of the masked number willed their master to return to the throne-like chair where he had sat before with two mighty wooden gryphons functioning for armrests. However, he remained standing, staring into the blue flames. 

“My Lord, if I may, Dumbledore is well aware of the power of sacrificial magic—” 

“As am I.” His tone commanded silence. “Was there anything else?” He flashed his piercing red eyes at Jane Taylor’s two interrogators. 

The same Death Eater whom had reported earlier spoke again after a pause. “There was only one thing out of the ordinary. The charm she attempted before we subdued her… She tried to cast a Patronus.” 

The Dark Lord steepled his fingers. “A Patronus? I’m surprised a witch of her caliber possessed the capabilities to create one.” Several heads swiveled towards the limp body of the witch on the table with renewed interest. She was in her sixties with a bland face and short, curly, gray hair. Visually, the most interesting thing about her was the melting curse that had rendered clawed stumps of her hands and feet.

“No doubt the witch became confused and mistook the cloak and mask for a Dementor.” It was the Death Eater interrogator whom had previously remained silent. They had grown bored and began to twirl their wand between their fingers, but at their comment, one of their compatriots arose from a chair at the table. 

“You have retrieved the wand, I hope. This charm…the Patronus…it is highly suspicious to cast in this part of the world. The mere suggestion a Dementor could have made its way to the continent would attract a huge amount of international attention.”

Wordlessly, the original speaker drew a second wand from their robes, lifting it with an imperious jerk of their chin. This was the one the Dark Lord addressed with his question. 

“You are certain she made no attempt to contact Dumbledore before her capture?”

“Positive, my Lord. She swore she failed under veritaserum. Her last point of contact was an owl to Dumbledore 3 days ago swearing she wouldn’t leave Greece.”  

“Yet she followed you to Albania as though she genuinely believed she could apprehend you or escape unscathed.” He detached himself from them, crossing the room in deep thought. 

For a moment, he appeared to study the woman on the table, but then his finger tapped a spot on the giant map spread beneath her. The source of his interest was right under his finger, Albania. His face did not lose its pensiveness when one of the two whispering figures at the end of the table leaned forward to address him, the only robed figure with any distinguishing mark by way of a large, bulky pendant around their neck. Its wooden intricacy contrasted starkly against the plain black of their robes, taking the shape of an all-seeing eye, a triangle with a circular iris and a slitlike pupil.

“Dumbledore is keeping close tabs on you—illegally acting outside the bounds of his Ministry to do so. He hasn’t paid this much attention to a wizard since 1945. I am curious what he expects from you.” 

“His penchant for foolishness aside, Dumbledore has always possessed a keen mind. He sees the writing on the wall throughout the United Kingdom. We have many sympathizers to our cause in our homeland who fear repercussions by making their voices heard. We are pleased to find ourselves among likeminded allies.”

The Dark Lord spoke with absolute charm. Nothing in his tone betrayed a hint of boredom or a twinge of annoyance, and so both figures jumped in their seats when he suddenly gave a guttural, violent hiss. 

“Nagini.”

A giant snake climbed up the head chair of the table and struck at the witch’s head. The two masked figures at the opposite end shrank in their seats, unable to look away from the snake unhinging its jaws. “She has not taken a meal in some time—” 

The Dark Lord flicked his wand.

“—but I do not wish to move her while she’s digesting.” The body of Jane Taylor transfigured into a fetal pig and Nagini clamped her mouth around the end of it in mild disappointment, swallowing down the curled tail with one additional twitch of her muscles. The two rattled spectators immediately relaxed and the room’s eight other occupants joined them around the table with the same banality of an ordinary dinner party.

“Now that the school year has drawn to close, Dumbledore will be on the move.” 

The map that covered the table flickered red in Scotland, then flashed in the Balkan Peninsula and slithered upwards. 

“He will visit Greece first and undoubtedly make his way here. He seems of the impression I am rounding up Grindelwald’s old advocates.” The Dark Lord’s tone was light, as though he was speaking of the addled mind of a doddering grandfather, but his red eyes were full of malice.

“It is time for us to return home. I would like to extend thanks to our gracious hosts for their hospitality.” He swept his arm across the three figures seated at opposite end of the table, and then paused with his his arm outstretched, his eyes honed in on the small lump in Nagini’s midsection. 

“He always sends the most useless people.”

❀

Severus jumped through a dazzling shower of sparks from a firecracker set off by a graduating Ravenclaw seventh year. Heaps more whizzed behind him, exploding in loud whistles and thunderous applause. He found himself flanked by a guard of shimmering eagles, which looped up and away as he neared the barrier to the Muggle side of King’s Cross. He gave them one last longing look—spoiled by Mary Pike sneering disdainfully at his raggedy Muggle clothes. He had donned them at the last possible moment so no one would see him in them, and he’d mostly gotten away with it. Pike didn’t matter. Neither did Arushi, who stood next to her, unchanged as ever, with her hands covering her eyes to protect herself from Muggles, and probably proud to miss the multicolored light show, which would be better in Jumbudvipa.

A couple yards to the left, he spied her parents walking towards her in robes as dazzling and multicolored as some of the firecrackers. The Bhatars weren’t as furious as they had been the last time he saw them nearly two years ago, but people gave them a wide berth nevertheless. He did a double take. They had a Ministry detail! He didn’t know how he didn’t catch it before. Two uniformed Magical Law Enforcement wizards trailed behind them, scanning the train platform for suspicious activity with their wands out and shouting at nearby parents and students to step aside. Severus wondered if they were important enough to warrant a full-fledged Auror on their security team. He frantically whipped his head side to side before remembering an Auror would be expertly hidden. 

It seemed a good time to get out of here.

On the other side of the barrier, Muggle London was just as loud, but devoid of any magic. It couldn’t recognize itself on the fringes of something powerful and tremendous and magnificent. The speakers blared with some drab announcement about a delay on Platform 3, and commuters had their heads up their arses because the station changed the track layouts. Some git nearly ran him over with their trolley. 

That was Lily’s dad.

Mr. Evans must’ve seen him and took him for a leper because he darted away faster than a rabbit fleeing a fox, steering his wife towards a dead end. Severus used the opportunity to search for Lily, spotting the tail of her dark red hair swishing a few yards away. She was deep in conversation with her sister, whose blonde hair was piled into a ridiculous bun that sat atop her head like a voluminous cottontail. By the look of things, Tuney was starting trouble again.

“—I took it by accident,” Lily sighed.

“I don’t care. Give it back!” 

Lily tugged off the gray cardigan she had been wearing and handed it to Petunia, who held it at arm’s length between two fingers, like she was desperate to spray it with disinfectant. She was scrutinizing it suspiciously from all angles with scrupulosity a bomb squad would envy.

“Ew!” Tuney shrieked, pulling back her hand. Severus knew what happened at once and his eyes lit up. She’d reached into the pocket with frogspawn. “That’s disgusting!” 

Lily spotted him and grinned over her sister’s shoulder. “I forgot about that too. It’ll wash out.”

“No! You keep it!” Petunia snapped, shoving the cardigan back in Lily’s arms and storming off towards the exit. Or maybe the washroom. Severus shot Lily a look of sympathy. They were stuck with Muggles for the summer. He’d taken a single step in her direction when bony fingers wrapped around his elbow.

“There you are,” Mum said in a low, rushed voice. “Hurry up! We have a train to catch.” She let go of him and began walking at double pace, trusting he’d follow. He sprinted to keep up with her, wondering if he could persuade her to wait a few more minutes so he could talk to Lily. They could find a FLOO to the Midlands from the Leaky. She could Apparate them.

“Mum!” She turned a corner. He sped up to cut in front of her, not easy with his trunk to maneuver. “Mum—”

“What, Severus?”

The request crawled back down his throat. Mum had a nasty shiner. Toby must’ve lamped her last week because the swelling was down and the skin surrounding her right eye was in the green-edged purple stage—when the bruise reached the ugly point of healing. He mumbled an apology in gibberish and shadowed her to their next connection in silence. He could barely stand to look at her.

They squeezed themselves onto a crammed, northbound train and entered the first empty compartment they found. Severus took his time stowing his trunk on the overhead rack even though it felt strangely weightless in his arms. When he could avoid it no longer, he sat down and mindlessly fixed his eyes on his too-small loafers. Despite waiting until the very last minute to swap his boots for Muggle shoes, his toes already felt numb jammed into shoes he outgrew in September.

Every once in awhile, someone would approach their compartment, peer through the glass, and hastily move along. The Muggles wouldn’t bother them so long as they didn’t lower their blinds, but Severus wished he’d bothered to look up the Muggle-repelling charm in the Hogwarts library. If he’d’ve asked Lucius to teach him, he wouldn’t’ve found himself in this fishbowl. Zoo animals got more privacy. He glared at another wide-eyed, rubbernecking muppet, who got the message and scampered away. The train whistle blew and he looked down at his hands long enough to notice a hangnail on his thumb. He peeled it back; the strip of skin bloodied, but wouldn’t rip.

“How was school?” Mum asked. Mum was being talkative. That made it worse.

“Alright.”

She said nothing in reply. He stared out the window, his eyes glazing over the same set of buildings he’d just passed in reverse on the Express, his thoughts rewinding over the memory of sharing a compartment with Lucius and Narcissa most of the way. The version of him that had sat laughing with them was such a clueless knob. He tried to match his breathing to the rhythm of the train clacking over the rail joints. He could hear Mum draw a sharp intake of breath, like her next words were going to give him a thick ear.

“Your father is in Birmingham. The mill shut down permanently in November.”

He nodded, clenching and unclenching his fists. He wanted to cob Toby in the face himself. 

He wished Lily would’ve given him a heads up about the mill closing before remembering it wouldn’t’ve done him a wick of good. Mum could’ve given him a heads up about the mill if she really wanted…and what? He could’ve done squat from Hogwarts. 

If Mum had her wand…

If he had her wand…

A fucking week! He couldn’t have gotten out of school a fucking week ago!

His gaze flickered over to the empty luggage rail over Mum’s head, to the compartment door, down to his ill-fitting shoes. Anywhere to avoid the sight of Mum’s black eye. 

For Mum’s part, she didn’t look at him either.

The train pulled into Grosgrain Station, understaffed worse than a bank holiday. Cynically, he wondered if they’d shut it down now that freight didn’t need to unload by the mill. He and Mum were the only two passengers to get off—downright eerie. They passed the abandoned shack of a station house, heading straight for the stairs, which were lined with rubbish. He punted an empty can of pop so far it scared a rat out of its hiding place from under the rails. 

He was home.

Cokeworth was the same toilet he’d left it. New layers of soot had seeped into the brick terraces and the cracks between cobblestones. The river stank like sewage left to fester in the sun. He bet the owners of Swanson poured all their shit and chemicals straight into the water supply on their way out to avoid paying removal fees. That’d be their version of cleaning. He stepped into the dark shadow of the mill chimney and craned his neck upwards. The smokestack’s last smoky breath still clung to the smog-colored sky. It died straight-backed and proud, a better end than the average mill worker got. Ever Cokeworth’s homing beacon, it dominated the horizon for miles, giving the city a giant middle finger on his behalf. He liked it even more now that Toby was gone—permanently with any luck. He finally puzzled out why the old man had left when they passed his favorite pub boarded up, The Royal, the only place Toby’d find a throne.

An official-looking group of people were gathered ahead, squinting up at the mill chimney. Severus spotted Dotten, the former mill foreman, in a suit with other suits. Then his eyes honed in on a man he’d never seen round the mill before. He was dressed shabbier than the rest, talking animatedly and pointing his finger at the smokestack, pausing to push his coke bottle glasses up his nose and pointing at the chimney again. 

Severus felt a pair of eyes catch him staring. A couple yards away was Toby’s old gang, a club of whoever beat the mill’s odds and didn’t drop dead at fifty. On reflex, Severus stepped closer to Mum to shield her from their view. Bert mouthed the word, “Steeplejack,” and jerked his chin to the lanky-looking fellow with coke bottle glasses. Severus didn’t know what Bert hoped to gain by hanging round the conversation, he couldn’t hear. John Rymes waved a hand, the spineless treasurer of all Toby’s sob stories. He was soft in the head and turned a blind eye to anything. Still, Severus couldn’t hate him because he’d always been decent to Mum, even if Severus bet old Rymes was the reason Mum stuck by Toby so long.

Where were the mates gonna get bladdered now? No more Royal. They’d better hope The Rook would take them back between Toby being gone and the pub needing to pay its bills. If The Rook hadn’t closed down already too. 

The chemist hadn’t made it. Pest control closed shop. The loaners’ was surprisingly busy with a queue extending for half a street of houses, each haggard face poorer than the next. What bollocks were they taking as collateral at a time like this? He jerked his head over his shoulder, back in the direction of the steeplejack. 

“Are they demolishing the housing complex?”

“No,” Mum said firmly. She really must’ve been out of sorts to have answered a question as straight as that.

As he and Mum neared Spinner’s End, it became apparent how deserted the place was. Aside from the queue by the loan building, the streets were empty. Every several yards, he’d spot someone leaning out their windows for a smoke, but signs of life were few and far between. A peal of high-pitched laughter pricked the air, like a chorus of invisible children stirring mischief from behind brick walls. It struck him as strange until he noticed how quiet everything was for this hour—there was zero noise from the river boats. It was as though in the span of the 10 months he’d been gone, his whole neighborhood had been wiped away, and everyone who was left had learned to move on.

He hoped the chippy hadn’t closed—not that he could buy anything, he was skint. While Mum fished through her pockets for the key to the house, he fantasized about paying for his potato scallops and pickled onion in Sickles and telling whichever girl was stuck on the till it was real silver. 

“There’s creamed rice in the cupboard if you want to fix yourself supper.”

Severus grunted a reply. He was just itching to take off his shoes. The new blister forming on the outer edge of his foot had popped on the walk over and he’d been ignoring it so Mum wouldn’t fret she’d need to buy him a new pair already. His foot burned against the vinyl, and he fought to keep his face neutral because Mum wouldn’t stop staring at him. Their eyes met—his jumped to her discolored skin—and she hastily turned her back to him, so tense her shoulder blades pinched together. She cleared her throat, her voice unnaturally delicate. 

“Mind the new hinge on the cupboard. It swings out—” 

He rounded on her before she could finish the lie. 

“I’m not an idiot!” he snapped, regretting to have proved the point. So much for trying not to hassle her.

Severus stormed up the creaking steps and shoved his trunk into his bedroom, kicking it to the foot of his bed in a poor mirror of his Hogwarts dorm. It stopped his door from swinging open fully, which was the point. The movement whipped up a cloud of dust, which rose and resettled over his furniture. His lamp was in the same spot he had left it last August, so he moved it under the bed, ignoring his throbbing foot. It would be more inconvenient atop his trunk or taking up floor space. He had a wand for a light anyway. 

It was time to face the real issue.

His trunk was suspiciously light. He’d lugged it the whole way here as easily as if it’d been empty. He’d noticed on the second train ride but didn’t want to bother checking it given the state of Mum’s face. She didn’t need more problems on his account. Severus didn’t think he’d run into any invisible enemies on his way off the Hogwarts Express, but that was the benefit of being invisible, wasn’t it? He jammed his hands in his pockets and ran his tongue in a crooked line along his teeth. He couldn’t afford to replace a bloody thing. His only saving grace was he had stowed Mum’s wand inside the sleeve of his button-down, flush with the skin of his left forearm. No matter what, they’d still have a wand. He uncuffed his sleeve and pulled it out.

Moment of truth.

The instant Severus unlatched his trunk, its contents burst open of their of accord. It had been stuffed to the brim with numerous black school robes of increasing sizes. He ran his fingers against the soft fabric, certain it wasn’t his, but he found his own name hand-embroidered inside every garment. There were five pairs of boots, winter cloaks, spare glass beakers and jars, rolls of parchment by the yard, inkwells and quills, extra books he didn’t own. And beneath all of it was a brass cauldron. No note.

Severus rubbed the heels of his palms against his eyes. Lucius had a slick switching spell. 

He’d owe Malfoy a lot. He thought he and Lucius closed the year with favors balanced, but this tipped the scale immeasurably.

How could he pay all this back?

With a punch in the gut as heavy as lead, Severus finally felt the reality that Lucius had graduated. He wouldn’t be coming back to Hogwarts next year. This was the end of their friendship. 

He picked up the gleaming cauldron, his reflection swimming in Liquid Luck. He could see every corner of his grubby room reflected on its golden hued surface, from the gritty wooden floor to the ratty sheets on his bed to the popcorn ceiling. He caught himself smiling in spite of everything.

This would get Mum’s bruise paste brewed in twenty minutes—if he still had any leech juice left. He shuffled back to his trunk to see if Lucius had left him any ingredients from the NEWT-level potions kit.

❀ ❀

“Wake up!” She rapped Lily’s bedroom door sharply three times.

Lily opened the door, rubbing at her eyes and scowling. “Good morning to you too.”

Petunia crossed her arms, her pale eyes turning icy as she peered over Lily’s shoulder. “Thieves don’t deserve morning greetings. You stole my cardigan. Give it back.”

“You gave it to me,” Lily said flatly.

“My other cardigan,” Petunia clarified with a mean smile. “The white one.” 

Lily shrugged, tying the belt of her dressing gown. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Petunia felt her eyelid twitch. Lily had already taken one cardigan “by accident” and left gross frogspawn in the pocket “by accident.” She wasn’t going to keep a second, but Petunia wasn’t about to step into Lily’s room either. That would be like diving into a swimming pool of damp, gooey frogspawn—no, thank you. Petunia was about to warn Lily they could stand here all day, but her next words were interrupted by Mum’s voice rising up from the ground floor.

“She’s awake! Lily! Lily!”

Mum rounded the corridor and appeared at the base of the staircase. 

“Lily, come for breakfast!” Mum called with a giant, red-coated smile. Lily gave Petunia a smug look as she went downstairs and followed their mother into the dining room. Petunia shot one last glower at Lily’s bedroom and trailed after the pair sullenly. The family had already eaten breakfast without Lily, and Petunia suspected this was a special surprise her parents had prepared for Lily’s arrival. Sure enough, the dining room had transformed in the twenty minutes since she had gone upstairs.

The breakfast spread was so lavish it filled the whole table, though it was meant for only one person. Mum artfully arranged Lily’s store-bought full English buffet-style on tiny plates. Petunia started counting—bacon, baked beans, black pudding, cabbage, grilled tomatoes, roasted mushrooms, sausages, poached egg, potatoes, buttered toast, even a scone with cream and strawberries on the side—each positioned neatly on their own little island with rosebud borders. One large plate waited in front of Lily’s seat. The only other empty plate was Dad’s, still carrying crumbs from the toast he ate earlier.

“Morning!”

Dad threw his paper aside when he noticed Lily and beamed. Mum joined him on one side of table, gesturing for Lily to sit across from them. Petunia crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe. The fourth chair of the set had been moved against the wall to give Lily’s seat more space. 

“Oh, Pet,” Mum said, noticing Petunia in the corner, “could you put the kettle on?” Petunia slipped deeper into the kitchen like a shadow.

By the time she came back with the missing milk, teacups and sugar bowl, Lily had loaded up a heaping plate of everything and was digging into her poached egg. Mum and Dad alternated between smiling at her and exchanging smiles between themselves. They had their hands folded, businesslike. Petunia couldn’t imagine what this was about. They hadn’t mentioned plans for a surprise in the weeks leading up to summer holiday, but she wouldn’t underestimate Dad’s ability to keep a secret. Lily caught their eyes when she reached for the pepper shaker, noticing something was off. She slowed her chewing and glanced between them. Dad cleared his throat.

“Lily, your mother and I were talking—”

“—we want to see you do magic!” Mum interrupted excitedly. Dad laughed and nodded his head.

“Well, yes, we would like to see you do magic.” They both looked at her expectantly. Petunia simply stared, her mouth agape.

It took Lily a long time to respond. She had taken a large bite of bacon-topped potatoes and stopped chewing at her parents’ words. Eventually she swallowed the lump.

“I’m not supposed to do magic outside of school until I’m seventeen.”

“Now our girl wants to follow the rules!” Rosie said playfully to Ned, who scooted his seat closer to the table. He looked Lily in the eyes over the sugar bowl.

“How will they know?” he winked, his excitement palpable. “We’ve waited a very long time to see you do a spell.”

“It’s been unbearable!” Mum wailed. “We’ve waited two whole years!”

Lily’s fork stopped midway between her plate and her mouth. A conflicted expression passed her face, but it didn’t stay for long. She never cared much for rules and an invitation to showoff was irresistible to her. The little girl who jumped off the swings when Mummy said not to hadn’t changed. Mum knew it, Dad knew it, Petunia knew it. 

“Alright,” she grinned. “Let me get my wand!” She raced out of the dining room, breakfast forgotten, and stormed up the staircase where they could hear her rifling through her bedroom. Petunia remained frozen in horror at the corner of the table.

Mum and Dad were chattering excitedly like they scored front row seats for a magician’s act. Petunia wished she could close the curtain on the show. She didn’t want to see Lily do magic. She liked the rule that magic wasn’t allowed outside of that school. If Lily was breaking it, why wouldn’t every kid? She felt her throat seize up. Her thoughts immediately jumped to Snape, like he plotted this moment from across the river. What had he said about doing magic outside of school after turning eleven? The kettle let out a loud warning whistle. 

This felt like some horrible ritual to summon the dementors.

“I’ll get the kettle,” she said meekly. Her parents didn’t notice her disappear out of the room, but Lily returned and wouldn’t start without her. Lily had worn her witch’s hat for the occasion—unnecessary but theatrical. Watch what I can do. All eyes had to be on her. Petunia began pouring tea. A cup for Mum, a cup for Dad, a cup for herself—which Mum reflexively put in front of Lily—and she didn’t get a chance to pour the final cup because Lily drew out her wand. Petunia’s hands started shaking and she set the kettle down.

Lily opened her textbook to a diagram, which Mum and Dad looked at like…well, it was sorcery. Petunia didn’t know whether she should be impressed or not. If this was from a second year textbook, how could she be sure this was different from showing off the periodic table?

Lily cleared her throat and lowered the pitch of her voice. 

“In Transfiguration, we’ve begun learning how to transform an inanimate object into an animate form.”

Mum and Dad exchanged looks of awe.

This was hardly getting sawed in half, but Petunia still had her misgivings. She thought of the boy she had seen transforming a feather into a bird the first time her family brought Lily to King’s Cross. Maybe this was the spell Lily was performing? Her eyes darted round the room, its striped wallpaper suddenly cage-like and confining. Their dining room was a horrible space for a bird!

Wand in hand, Lily’s eyes roved over the table, reminiscent of pompous Professor Frothmore. Petunia watched her with a sharp, mistrustful gaze. There was no feather here, and Lily skipped over the poached egg, the next closest thing. She jolted as Lily pointed her wand in her direction. For a split second their eyes met and Lily lowered her wand at Petunia’s empty teacup.

She tapped the cup three times.

“Rodofors.” 

Before her eyes, the top of the teacup’s handle detached and began to wriggle flexibly while its body grew furry and expanded, the tiny rosebuds stretching themselves into amorphous, gray blobs. Petunia shrieked as a white and gray rat ran across the tablecloth and began tearing into the scone with its sharp incisors. It stuffed its cheeks, then climbed onto the plate, stepping into the cream and dragging its tail across the strawberries.

“Stop! Stop it! Turn it back!” She backed as far away from the disgusting rat as possible. Mum and Dad rose to their feet like this was the dramatic part of the performance.

Lily pulled back her sleeves and pointed her wand again, but the rat tried to escape her. It ran around the cabbage, dodged Dad’s teacup, and circled the empty bacon plate before Lily’s wand caught up to it. As she said her spell, the rat began to reform into a teacup mid-leap, but something was wrong. Its tail was left wormlike and wriggling where the handle should have been, twitching as though caught somewhere between life and lifelessness. Petunia stared at it in horror. Mum and Dad applauded, but Lily looked flustered. 

“Return!” she repeated.

“Ooh! Try it in Latin,” Mum suggested excitedly. 

“The counter spell isn’t in Latin,” Lily seethed, accidentally knocking off her hat. She flung it on the table and tried again, aiming her wand at the thin, pink tail, which squirmed out of her reach like it knew her intention. “Return!” 

The tail gave a lazy, gloating flick.

“I always get that spell right,” she muttered, tapping the rat-tailed teacup three times more. Nothing happened. Chagrined, she added, “We don’t get much practice changing them back.”

“No, it’s better this way,” Dad said quickly. “I might not have been able to believe my eyes otherwise.” He bent down to view the writhing rat tail at eye-level. Then he rose and held up the scone, studying the nibbled end in morbid fascination. He returned it to its plate with the same reverence with which the religious behold precious relics, and lifted the teacup round its middle, brushing cream off its base with his thumb. Hesitantly, he reached out his finger to poke at the tail. His face stretched in surprise. “You can feel its bones,” he gasped.

Mum was muttering about the possibilities this could lead to with such feverish energy she sounded like she was speaking in tongues. Petunia felt tears prick her eyes.

“What are we going to do with this?” he chuckled, shaking the teacup high with his pinky out to match the wiggling tail. “I’m going to drink my tea out of this cup every morning!” His grin slid off his face when he noticed Petunia crying in the corner. Her whole body shook. Following his gaze, Mum turned towards her. Then Lily. They blurred in front of her vision and she blinked them back into focus. Her eyes met Lily’s. 

“You’re horrid!” Petunia said through her tears. Her voice trembled and she needed to take two deep breaths to get the rest of her words out. “You did it on purpose! You could have done any magic you wanted. You chose to turn a teacup into a rat on purpose! There were four on the table. You chose mine!” Mum and Dad looked between Lily and Petunia in bewilderment.

“That was the spell,” Lily said quickly. She lifted her textbook as proof, whipping her head between Petunia and their parents. “The spell is to turn a rat into a teacup! I picked yours because it was the only cup that was empty.”

Mum took the open book from Lily and tapped the bolded header with satisfaction. “See, Pet,” she said soothingly. “Lily picked yours because it was empty. That’s just the spell they learn in school.” Dad set the teacup down, covering its pink tail under Lily’s witch hat.

If that wasn’t the biggest crock Petunia had ever heard. Her sister had transformed china into an animal—as if a little hot water really could’ve stopped her. Was she going to melt? Lily had looked directly at her with her wand in hand. She chose to be a gremlin on purpose.

Petunia wiped her eyes and pushed her way out of the room. She gave another start as a dark, swooping shape flew towards the window. Dad swung the plane of glass open wide. It was an owl carrying an official-looking letter, which Dad handed to Lily as the bird took off. 

“Look at that, poppet, it’s addressed from the Ministry of Magic.”

Lily nearly spat out her tea. “I know what that is. It’s my merit letter—for my grades! I earned a distinction—in Potions. Did I tell you?”

Mum and Dad switched to lavishing Lily with their congratulations and asking her to read the letter out to them. Petunia retreated to her room and stayed locked behind the safety of her door through lunch. Dad stopped by to tell her he’d gotten rid of the cup. Lily was against the idea of keeping a souvenir, so he smashed it to pieces against the hearth and threw it in the rubbish. He brought her aspirin and water in a glass that never had a rat tail. He left it in the corridor for her. 

He didn’t mention whether or not the teacup’s tail had transformed back into a broken handle on its own.

Petunia lay across her bed, hugging her pillow. It was Lily’s first day back home and Petunia already wished she was gone. Her sister was ruining her life. That awful school had transformed Lily into a different person. Pointing a wand at her and transforming her teacup into a rat seemed downright fiendish. What kind of school would teach students a spell to turn teacups into rats? She was right! A school for freaks and weirdos! Why would they even teach a spell like that except to terrorize someone?

Is this what the rest of her life was going to come to—cowering in her own home, afraid that she’d find herself at the wrong end of a wand? Lily wasn’t the only witch she knew. That boy! And his strange mother. There was an entire school of them. Who knew how many witches and wizards were running around with the power to transform teacups into rats, disguising themselves among normal people like Professor Frothmore had? Would she going have to live the rest of her life knowing one wrong move would get her into serious trouble?

The fear consumed her until supper neared, by which point she was fed up with the idea of witches ruling her life. 

She was getting her cardigan back.

She opened the door to Lily’s bedroom and switched on the light, stalling in the doorway. Somehow she felt much braver down the corridor. There was no telling what atrocities she could find here. Live animals…human remains…the dark possibilities were endless. 

Mum had cleaned Lily’s room for her arrival, but this place already bore the signs of a natural disaster. Lily must have decided to clean out the contents of her trunk last night and gone to bed with the job unfinished. She had a pile of broken quills and dry inkwells alongside old, unmatched socks with holes, eroded corks, and broken hair ties. Her school books were stacked next to the rubbish pile. Then a laundry pile—Petunia recognized her gray cardigan carelessly lying on the floor. And there! There, resting on the back of Lily’s desk chair, was Petunia’s stolen white cardigan.

She hopped around Lily’s creepy witch things to retrieve it and hugged it close. It still smelled strongly of washing powder. To her immense satisfaction, the tag said Petunia in her own neat penmanship.

She planned to return to her room when a flash of moving color caught her eye from atop the bed. She had avoided looking there earlier because Lily had a large number of trading cards from her witch world spread over her covers and Petunia just knew there would be something weird about them. The images were moving in their frames! In the card nearest to her, Circe was turning people into pigs. It practically made her green! The character from the Greek poem had been a real, live witch. She had turned real people into pigs. 

How close had she come to being turned into an animal downstairs? 

Petunia shuddered and averted her eyes. Right above the card was a folded piece of paper. The word “WARNING” was spelled out across it in large, glaring red letters, drawing her eyes like a neon sign. It almost passed for part of the card collection except that sticking out from underneath it was an envelope Petunia recognized as the same one Dad had handed to Lily. This was the Ministry letter Lily claimed she received for academic excellence. Petunia would bet her hair curlers that was not a letter for outstanding scholastic achievement. 

Lily had already decided there were no qualms between sisters reading each others’ private mail in the Evans household, so Petunia tore into her sister’s letter with a savage sense of fair play.

Dear Miss Evans,

Our office has received intelligence that you have performed an inanimate-to-animate transfiguration spell in a Muggle residence in the presence of multiple Muggles at nine minutes past ten this morning, followed by a reversal spell fifty-three seconds later. This breach of the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Sorcery is a serious one, and although our offices are presently investigating higher demands, your misuse of magic has been marked on your record. This offense will be visible to future employers and may hinder your career prospects, especially if you wish to seek employment with the Ministry of Magic. 

Let this serve as a reminder that you are unauthorized to perform magic outside the boundaries of Hogwarts until the age of seventeen. Further incidents of performing magic outside of school whilst under the age of majority will result in your expulsion from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the destruction of your wand. Bear in mind that any magical activity that risks the notice of Muggles is a serious offense under section 13 of the International Confederation of Warlocks’ Statute of Secrecy and is punishable by law.

Yours sincerely,

Jasper Quirke

Improper Use of Magic Office, Ministry of Magic

Petunia’s jaw hung open as she read through the letter a second time. Her thoughts were still stumbling over the very first sentence. Our office has received intelligence that you have performed an inanimate-to-animate transfiguration spell in a Muggle residence in the presence of multiple Muggles at nine minutes past ten this morning… The implications of the note were far too frightening to find much satisfaction in Lily almost getting expelled. 

How did they know? 

Snape once told Lily wizards were spying on normal people’s mail. Could they look into their homes too? She felt like she was being watched right now. It was a chilling feeling, like clammy frogspawn was sliding down the back of her neck. Slowly, she turned her head—

“Ah!”

“That’s mine,” Lily yelled, snatching the letter from Petunia’s hand and crumpling it in her fists. She started to tear the paper to bits, her face so red it almost matched her hair.

In less time than the Petunia’s teacup ran on all fours, the warning letter was reduced to tiny, confetti-sized pieces of paper, but its contents were already seared into her mind. “You can’t destroy it from your record,” she said, the words sounding far less vicious than she intended them. 

Lily ignored the jibe. “What are you doing in my room?” she demanded furiously. 

Petunia wavered, wringing her cardigan between her hands. Lily was without her wand and, according to that letter, could be without her wand forever if she broke her decree again. The very thought gave her courage. If she was in danger right now, so was Lily.

“This is my cardigan.” She lifted its tag high, all but shoving her printed name in Lily’s face. “I don’t know if you can read. That was hardly a letter of scholastic achievement.”

“It’s rubbish now, isn’t it?” Lily glared back.

“You aren’t supposed to use magic outside of school!” Petunia cried. Here she’d been wilting in fear that Lily or that Snape boy might harm her in some way if she didn’t tow their line, but it had all been a lie. The official Ministry letter that had arrived for Lily was a warning message, not a special reward. “Now you’re in trouble with your Ministry of Magic!” 

Lily shrugged her shoulders, though the movement was jerky and tense. If she were going for nonchalant, she was a bad actress. “That? That’s no big deal. My professor has plenty of ‘old boys’ in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. That’ll go away by tomorrow.”

Petunia studied her sister’s flushed face and narrowed eyes. Lily was easy to fish out for lying, but she may have been telling the truth about a professor who could make all of this go away. Would her sister really risk expulsion and the destruction of her wand to turn a teacup into a rat? What a huge, foolish waste. The letter had called Lily’s breach of Underage Sorcery “serious,” yet alluded to higher investigations taking up the office’s time. That could mean one of two things. Either Lily’s breach of magic wasn’t serious at all and the warning letter was full of empty words. Or, the breach was serious, but the Improper Use of Magic Office routinely dealt with so many more pressing breaches of magic, they deemed hers unimportant in comparison. Both of those possibilities were bad for Petunia. It meant, one way or another, improper uses of magic slipped notice on the regular. She pursed her lips.

“Well, there’s no telling is there? You’re a liar,” Petunia said, emphasizing the last word as she hoisted her cardigan into the air like a banner. She marched to the door, Lily’s slitlike eyes trained on her back like knives.

“What are you going to do? Write Dumbledore?” Lily scoffed in a low, mocking voice.

Petunia stopped in the doorway, matching her voice to that lofty, spoiled-princess tone Lily managed so effortlessly. “You let me worry about that, and I’ll let you get back to your illegal activity and criminal behaviors.” She gave a fake, derisive gasp. “Maybe I should write Snape? You could muck up his reputation.”

Lily did catch her meaning, but found the slight funny instead of offensive. She wheezed a laugh and Petunia shot her a look of deep dislike, recalibrating her barb to sting.

“He probably likes you.”

“Yeah, Tuney, that’s what being friends means.”

“You know what I mean,” Petunia sneered. “He fancies you.”

“He does not,” Lily replied too forcefully. Petunia hit a nerve.

She made a disparaging sound. “Don’t tell me you fancy him.” 

“I don’t!”

To Petunia’s immense satisfaction, Lily’s face was splotched with red.

“Then you’re giving him the wrong idea by hanging around him so much.” She swung her cardigan over her shoulder and shut the door to Lily’s bedroom. 

❀ ❀ ❀

Severus knew it’d be a rotten day when he woke up to the sound of Toby’s radio. 

“Welcome home, welcome / Come on in, and close the door / You’ve been gone, too long / Welcome, you're home once more / I thought of all the things I'd say to you~”

It was the chart topper Lily liked, playing out of every radio speaker in the country through July, and today Toby completely ruined it by crowing along. 

Severus sprung out of bed and headed down the stairs. He had a lot of things he wanted to say to Toby. He hadn’t expected the old man back so soon but wasn’t surprised. The bastard refused to share his travel plans with Mum, seemed to know on some primitive level it would give the two of them too much leverage. He wasn’t wrong. Severus had begged Mum to change the locks, empty the house and take their chances on Knockturn during the same weeks Toby would’ve been riding the thought of the two of them spending every waking moment on high alert in case he walked through the door.

The acrid, stale smell of cigarette smoke hit his nose like a punch. He was so focused on coming face to face with Toby in the front room, he nearly tripped on the rucksack left next to the staircase, which fumbled his entrance. Toby’d already lit himself a fag and stretched out on the armchair, propping up a foot against the brick base of the fireplace. He was flipping through Mum’s booklet of Green Shield stamps, tallying up how many shillings she’d spent for every sixpence stamp like her personal prison governor, a cuppa on the table next to his ashtray. Severus reached over and spun the volume dial on Toby’s radio, cutting off the music, but Toby paid him as little attention as a buzzing fly. Severus had expected him to strike first, but he was sober, and the only predictable thing about Toby sober was he’d eventually be back at the bottle.

He stood there stiffly despite having his next move picked out, like playing black in chess. It was the old man’s move first.

“‘Bout time you got up. Enjoyin’ yer lie in?” Toby jerked his fag to Severus’ rumpled outfit. He was still in the same set of clothes he fell asleep in during the early hours of morning after his late night brewing session.“When I was thirteen, I had a job. Didn’t have holidays. Had to get up when the sky was still black.”

“What’d you do to my mum’s face?” The words left his lips the same way he’d rehearsed them in his head. His voice didn’t shake; he’d asked his question the same way Toby had, like he knew the answer already and didn’t give a fuck for the chinwag.

He knew the answer already. Severus curled both sets of fingers into fists to stop them from twitching.

“Deaf it.

Severus forced himself not to flinch the moment Toby straightened up. He stared the man down with every ounce of pure loathing in his being. He’d given Mum her wand back, which meant he’d need all the anger he could muster to defend himself against his bastard of a father. He met Toby’s eyes. Hatred, not fear. It wouldn’t work if he was afraid.

Toby was on his feet at the same time the back door opened and shut with a bang. Severus didn’t register a word from his mouth. Some spiel about working and money and paying for things, which is what he seized on. He was going to make Tobias pay. And he’d have to be quick for Mum, before her footsteps reached the front room and she was pulled into the thick of things. It happened so fast. One second, Toby loomed over him, prodding a thick finger against his chest, the next, Toby doubled over, coughing up a lung. For a fleeting moment, Severus reveled in it, like he’d made it happen with his magic, but the truth wasn’t half as impressive. He hadn’t done a thing. The grind of heavy labor had finally gotten to the old man, who was well on his way to being killed by his two life loves, cigarettes and booze.

Mum mutinously went to his side even as Toby waved her off of him.

Severus rolled his eyes at the sight of them and furiously stalked out the front door. He’d left Mum in a lion’s den, but she wasn’t defenseless anyway. She had her wand—not that she’d ever used it to defend either of them. 

She was the one who married a Muggle. The least she could do was fix it.

He reminded himself that the only person who thought Mum was a piece of work was Tobias. And from Mum’s point of view, Toby was smashing until Severus came along to ruin their happy marriage, though her black eye spoke otherwise.

He’d once told a hat loyalty was overrated…

Severus aimlessly followed the path away from mill housing. There was a new sign on the door to the wash house and he stepped close to read it—a closing notice on September first. “Use baths on Creed Street” like it wasn’t half way cross town. He switched routes, so he was no longer heading towards the park, meandering until he reached old farmland. The only people who came ever out here were snogging teenagers looking for easy privacy or the occasional tramp. He kept his head to the ground, so he was quick to notice comfrey growing beneath his feet. There was an entire row of it, probably planted for animal feed. Most of the tiny, bell-shaped flowers had already withered, but the leaves and roots were the parts really worth harvesting. They were a powerful ingredient for bruise paste, so ridiculously magical, even the Muggles called the plant knitbone.

He spent the better part of an hour ruining his hands to dig up the herb. His thoughts immediately snapped to how fast the work would go with a wand, and he’d halfway gotten up to leave. Then he berated himself for squandering something perfectly good. He dug deeper, tearing his skin to rip out the thick, black roots out of the soil. They were the size of a clump of spiky black carrots. By the end of it, for the price of one intact herb, he’d gotten dirt lodged under his fingernails, over his clothes. His hands were covered with blood and mud, which smeared together as he tried to wipe off either, but something amazing happened. Simply rubbing the comfrey leaves was enough to start healing his scratches. He broke off a chunk of root as best he could to get a little of its juice flowing. He clung to that feeling, magic as its own salve. 

Thanks to Lucius, he could brew two potions simultaneously. He’d forgotten how much he missed having a brass cauldron to work with. Side by side against the pewter, it was obvious how much faster he could brew with brass. He’d cycled through seven rounds of the dream potion he was working on while his pewter cauldron stewed poison like a trusty steed put out to pasture. The latter still wasn’t ready, but he cleaned off his ladle to check its progress. 

It had taken five days for his nightshade solution to dissolve the frog eggs in his frogspawn and three weeks for the gelatinous mass leftover to sink into the deep purple liquid, break apart, and grow until it resembled dozens of solid white tapioca pearls. He ladled them up to see how translucent they were. Most of them looked like like wisps of rolled up spider silk, but a few were almost there, nearly transparent bubbles dotted with little spots of white. He let them sink back into the solution one by one. Several more hours’ soak should do the trick. When the globules of poison were ready, they would float to the surface on their own. 

Nightshade poisons were a Knut off Knockturn, but devising his own carrier method had been a fun summer project. The translucent pearls reminded him of bubble wands; unlike the average nightshade poison, they would froth on the surface of a drink, innocuous to the untrained eye.

Severus shifted his attention to his new baby, his latest batch of experimental dream potion—the previous batches unviable and aborted. He was working on a draught that could induce a sleeper with good dreams, in theory. In practice, dream potions were notoriously tricky. The smallest miscalculation could turn a harmless sleeping aid into a very dark nightmare-inducing torture potion. Folks used that line for their defense in Azkaban trials all the time. I was only trying to brew him sweet dreams. That and, I didn’t know it was poison. I thought it was sleeping draught, honest! is why the Ministry criminalized accidents caused by home-brew sleeping potions. He’d read about it in a book of famous British potioneers Lily had gotten him for his birthday. She’d included a nice message about knowing she’d see him printed in the next edition, and then half of the entrants turned out to be in Azkaban. Lily swore she didn’t know beforehand, but they had a good laugh about it. She’d succeeded in getting him a potions book he hadn’t read. The book’s author, Heidi Blickensderfer, used to be the Prophet’s correspondent on Wizengamot trials. 

For better or worse, it explained why English potioneers stayed away from testing good-dream potions and why the witch who invented the potion for dreamless sleep made such a killing on its patent. Good-dream potions were common elsewhere in the world, like in Jumbudvipa, where wizards had achieved an ideal balance of non-addictive, mild, and still-worth-drinking concoctions thanks to their native hema berry, and in old witches’ tales, which proved how many people believed them possible. There was a legend about a witch who brewed a potion that could inspire dreams so powerful, its drinkers would choose to sleep in the dream forever. Most scholars dismissed it as a reference to the Draught of the Living Death, but that didn’t stop every potioneer worth their salt from trying to recreate something like it. 

He’d found some old journals in Slughorn’s personal library detailing the work of Herman Schaal, a potioneer who had some success mimicking a good-dream potion by relying on the hallucinogenic properties of poppy seeds and Saddle Scorpion telsons. The results were trippy; 80% of Schaal’s patients reported euphoric dreams while the other 20% suffered from horrific nightmares for weeks. His Ministry forced him to stop experimenting and banned the potion. Other potioneers across the continent managed worse rates with different sets of ingredients. 

So far, Severus had been attaining their wishy-washy results with a moonstone base. It was a fickle ingredient that didn’t naturally lend itself to the consistency a good-dream potion would require. He couldn’t risk this batch of potion trapping its drinker in a nightmare by tapping into some disturbed part of their subconscious and amplifying it, as wicked a potion as that would be. 

His good-dream potion would need to produce a series of sensations and images that didn’t exist. Typical hallucinogens were out. Too dangerous. He knew that’s where others went wrong; he just didn’t know how to get the moonstone right yet. He needed the ingredient for its illusory properties. 

Powdered moonstone was responsible for the uninhibited state aroused by many love potions, able to overpower the senses beyond an individual’s ability to reason and remain self-aware. That effect could usually be tempered with unicorn parts, like when it was paired with powdered unicorn horn in the Draught of Peace, but he couldn’t use them in this kind of potion because unicorn horn and tail performed poorly for illusory purposes. He’d need to find another ingredient to bring out the powdered moonstone’s innate soothing effects, without adding anything that would suppress it as a hallucinogen. 

The Hypnotizing Himalayan Cobra snake eyes from Lucius’ NEWT kit cheated the process. In essence, they could trick his powdered moonstone into behaving as needed. He’d tickle them with a bundle of unicorn tail hair before adding them to his cauldron. Rolling them in powdered unicorn horn, he’d learned, was risky business; if a stray granule of horn made its way into his potion, the surface would catch on fire and the flames would burn black. And they grew taller if you tried to use water to put them out. 

But this batch was ready to test. He measured out 25 milliliters of the orange liquid and poured it into a beaker. That would leave enough for one additional dose. The result didn’t look so bad, almost like orangeade if he held his nose. He toasted himself—and gagged. This must be what armadillo bile tasted like.

That night, he dreamt he was standing on the roof of the Evanses’ house. He had the sense this sequence of events originated from his memories, but history unravelled itself from the dream as easily as peel from an orange. He felt calm and peaceful next to the chimney. He didn’t look over the roof’s edge, but knew to turn his gaze skyward. He floated up, up. He was flying. He could swim through the sky like an ocean teeming with white puffy fish. Cokeworth became a distant speck below his feet. He soared through misted clouds, towards the stars shining in splendor. He was vaguely aware of needing to teach this spell to Lily, but the thought of her disappeared, falling from him like a weighted sandbag, propelling him higher. He felt so free and careless he might have been dead.

It was perfect until he woke up.

He grabbed Toby’s shaving mirror from under his pillow so quickly he knocked aside the bezoar he’d placed in easy reach on top of it just in case. It plunked on the floorboards and rolled somewhere under his bed unceremoniously. Shaking away any grogginess, he pulled down the skin of his lower eyelid to expose more eyeball. His sclerae were white and clear, his pupils not dilated, his tongue normal. Top side. Under side. No physical side effects. He studied his fingernails, then checked his toes for swelling or discoloration. He set the mirror down and jotted some notes on a scrap of parchment.

The result was decent enough. He remembered dreaming he was flying. The dream had been pleasant while asleep, but dull and meaningless to him now, like a very ordinary dream. That was for the best—he didn’t want an addictive potion. For the science of it, he uncorked the vial of leftover potion and wafted its scent. He felt no artificial draw to the orange liquid stinking faintly of armadillo bile, just an intellectual itch he didn’t need to scratch by testing the potion a second time.

He stoppered it, fully satisfied. 

This was a gift.

He put Toby’s mirror back in his parents’ room and found Mum in the kitchen, standing in front of the tap, which wasn’t running, and a basin of dirty water, which might have held dishes. The surface was too soapy to tell. She was motionless, staring straight ahead at the spot where the tap’s rusted pipe met the blank wall. The pipe might’ve been clogged—he couldn’t figure out any other explanation for why she stood there.

“Gifts…for signing my Hogsmeade form.” 

The form arrived two days ago, but he held onto it for this moment. They hadn’t bothered with presents, not after he’d ruined it when he was nine and she told him he could be nice to Toby for her birthday. 

She didn’t move an inch.

“This is a deadly poison”—now Mum turned around—“for vermin.” Mum’s scowl deepened. Well, he’d gotten her attention. He lifted the orange vial high. “And this is a dream potion. For you. Don’t get those confused.” He held up each again and put them on top of his form where she’d have to touch them.

Mum slowly glided to the table, her arms crossed and her eyebrows drawn together like a dark bird’s flapping wings. She twisted the vials slowly, a flicker of amusement playing across her dark eyes. “One for poison, one for sweet dreams…”

“Two to put ‘em to sleep,” he finished wryly, the corners of his lips twitching upwards. He was supposed to be cross with her.

Mum was silent for a moment, a touch of melancholy on her face. She picked up the dream potion and lifted it to the light. As she tipped it slightly, its contents flocculated into a central murky cloud.“Sweet dreams,” she murmured, studying the orange vial with narrowed eyes. She shot him a keen look, looking every bit the kind of crow that pecked out eyeballs. “I don’t remember them teaching a potion for pleasant dreams in the curriculum. When was that invented?” 

“Officially? Yesterday. Upstairs. By me.” 

Her expression darkened. She stopped looking at the vial, which she put back on the table, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes as he listed off the brewing process. 

“It’s a moonstone base dissolved in melon seed milk”—she crossed her arms and started walking from the kitchen—“the wings of a common blue butterfly mashed in armadillo bile and snake eyes—” he stopped rambling. “I already tested it! It works! It’s fine.”

Mum backtracked to the table and pushed the vial in his direction with a single, long-nailed finger. “For your own sweet dreams.” He pulled a face. As if to silence him, she lifted the poison bottle in concession. “I will take this.” 

Unbelievable. Without a single question about dosage or application, she left the kitchen. He heard her creak up the steps to her own bedroom.

“Sign my Hogsmeade form!” he called after her.

He pocketed the dream inducing potion, scowling. She didn’t take the vial, she didn’t sign his form. He’d have forged Mum’s signature if he wasn’t concerned McGonagall’d have them spelled with an anti-forgery charm. A tap from outside drew his attention. The owl that usually delivered his and Lily’s shared Daily Prophet subscription hovered outside the window, met his gaze with wide eyes, then flew off like it was a bad time. Chicken. He tossed the earth worm he’d set aside for its treat. 

She’d better fill out that permission slip before Toby got back. Thank the Grim, he hadn’t needed her to shove a bezoar down his throat this morning.

He moved to dump the murky gray dishwater in the yard since he was going out there anyway to collect the paper, but paused in front of basin, staring at the same spot that had drawn Mum’s eye. Nothing seemed out of place. With a turn of the rusty tap, water spurted out just fine. The tap worked. 

Typical Mum. She probably took the poison so he couldn’t use it on Toby. As he poured out the dish water over their crabgrass, a gnawing thought ate at his insides. She wouldn’t use it on herself, would she? Nervously, he turned to face the house. Mum was going to be fine here. Toby’d be spending most of the year in Birmingham. His hand slipped out under the weight of the basin’s dishes and some of the mud from the puddle he’d formed splashed on the morning’s Prophet. Sodding hell! What a shite day.

She would never do that to him.

Severus spent the last days of summer holiday agonizing over whether or not to leave Mum his brass cauldron. It’d be cruelly wasted as a fake flowerpot, but what if it got Mum brewing again? He couldn’t ask Lily for her advice because he’d have to tell her whom the cauldron came from, and he had the feeling she wouldn’t be nearly as upset as he’d be if Lucius’ gift became Muggle money frittered on mushy peas and pork sausages. He briefly considered brewing more bruise paste while he packed it up, but it seemed a mark of bad luck. Could he leave Mum here on the chance she’d get more bruises? He slammed the top of his trunk shut. He’d given her the poison, and Toby’d be gone most of the year anyway.

The only thing missing for his new term at Hogwarts was his Hogsmeade form, which he found buried under a pile of Muggle newspapers in a corner of the kitchen. 

Severus unfolded the permission slip just in case.

He rolled his eyes, scanning the rest of page. There was the whole form, diligently filled out in Toby’s hand. 

Didn’t Toby have a clue? He couldn’t wait to get to Hogsmeade, a village exclusively for magical people where no Muggles were allowed.