Chapter One

The room vibrated with the deafening sound of Screamo music as Severus Snape lay on his bed, staring absently at the ceiling. The only light in the room was the crack under his door. The dim light fanned out over his carpet then faded as it reached the foot of his bed, leaving Severus' form in darkness. For a few seconds, he could hear the muffled argument from the kitchen. He rolled over onto his side and turned up the stereo.

As he turned his face towards the ceiling again, a single tear escaped his dark eye. He quickly wiped it away with the back of his hand. Crying was for the weak, and he, Severus Snape, was not weak. In the gap between two of the songs the fight between his parents escalated, then abruptly went silent after a large smack reverberated around the kitchen followed by a quick gasp of pain from his mother. Severus heard the front door slam, then the soft footsteps of his mother shuffling toward her room. Finally, the exhaustion of the day caught up with him and he turned off his music and sunk into the familiar uncertainty of his haunting dreams.

The shrill shrieking of Severus's old alarm clock filled the small room at ten to six. Severus quickly sprang up and stifled the buzz before his parents woke; on September first he always did this. His father never had understood how important magic was to him and thought him a freak for being able to use it. In the dark of his room, he silently dressed and checked his trunk. He left his room, his feet padding softly on the carpet as he walked to the kitchen. Entering he saw his mother, Eileen, dressed in a dark blue dressing gown and holding a cup of tea, she was sitting at the table gazing aimlessly through the window facing the dying grass in the backyard.

"Have you seen my other shoe?" Severus asked. His mother jumped, "No, I am not responsible for your belongings." She replied absently, and turned back to the window. Severus scanned the room for something to eat. Seeing nothing, he went in search of his shoe.

After about half an hour of searching, he found the tattered gray trainer and pulled it on. In the next room over, Severus heard the running water of a sink, and knew that it was time to leave. He hauled his heavy trunk down the hall and out the front door. When he reached the sidewalk, he turned around to look at his house. It was a dismal place to live with its fading and chipped paint, two broken windows, all of which were framed by an invasion of weeds that were slowly suffocating the overgrown grass.

Severus walked to the playground and sat under the tree that he and Lily had sat under together so many times before, and began to wait. For the next couple of hours, Severus checked his watch impatiently, until finally, it was ten thirty. 'Lily…' he thought, eyes closed in ecstasy while his stomach did a couple of back flips and his limbs began to tingle. Breathing deeply, as if breathing in her sweet sent, he opened his eyes and walked forward.