A child walks away from the black-draped crowd of mourners, moving slowly until she reaches the slow-moving river that flows calmly past the funeral proceedings. She cannot bear to stare at the closed coffin for one more second, cannot stand to smell the overwhelming odor of the multitude of dark red roses that decorate the new gravestone. Feet from the sloping bank, she stops and gazes into the distance as far as she can see. There is only fog, for the ocean is just over that hill to the west.

Every breath drawn, she has learned, can be the last, and she fills her lungs completely time and again. A trio of tears traces a delta down her face, but she wipes them away across her sleeve. The time for crying is past, though the old women still sob and wail behind her as they lament their loss. No one has come after her, but that is just as well. The longing she feels cannot be understood by any in the funeral party.

The fog begins to melt away as the sun breaks through the clouds, and she can see where the river crawls to the sea, as if it were a baby returning to a mother’s arms. She envies the river, in a way. It has a true destination, and it always knows where to return home. Its innocence is not wasted in a far-too-adult world.

No one comes after her. If they did, they would see the abnormal awareness in her somber little face, the grown-up slant to her straight black brows, the abstract dream in her hooded eyes. If they spoke to her, they would hear the anger in her answer, the anger that fills her so completely.

For she is angry, more angry than a child can rightly be. She is angry at her mother for leaving so suddenly. She is angry at her father for paying more attention to the distant relatives than to her. She is angry at her sisters for pretending that Mama is just away on holiday. She is angry at her second cousins and great aunts and all the mourners whom she’s never seen before, the sober-faced people much taller than her who murmur sadly and say nothing at all.

And she is angry, enraged, furious at the sub-humans who had killed her mother. She has always been taught that Muggles are of a lower order than wizards, and now she knows the truth. Muggles are the lowest scum of the Earth, lower than a slimy toad in the mud. The girl remembers her father’s face when he got the news; she remembers the burning hatred that replaced his initial shock; she remembers his low, bitter words which he thought no one could hear: “Those goddamn Muggles. Those bloody animals. They’ve taken my Druella from me. Those goddamn Muggles and their goddamn war.”

Her anger is even stronger than her father’s, she thinks. Her mother had been the girl’s whole world; she had held her daughter whenever the girl was ill and feverish; she had taught her daughter how to ride a broomstick when Father had said the girl was too young; she had laughed and clapped with joy when the letter came from Hogwarts, only days before the terrible air raid that had dropped a bomb directly on her and snuffed out her life.

The girl’s anger will never let her go; it is ingrained too deeply; it is a burden that is hers alone. Her two younger sisters don’t care nearly as much, or at least Meda doesn’t. Andromeda doesn’t understand that Muggles are lower than mud, but Narcissa might. The girl thinks fondly of her pale, blonde sister, the beautiful one of the family. At least Sissy shares her loathing of Muggles.

One of the mourners comes up beside her and puts an arm around her hunched shoulders. She looks up to meet the sympathetic eyes of a tall teenaged boy, no doubt a cousin several times removed. He must be related on her father’s side, for he has the dark eyes and handsome face that dominate the features of members of the Black family. The boy does not speak for a moment; he follows her gaze across the river to the opposite bank. The silence, which the girl liked when alone but which is uncomfortable with company, becomes unbearable, and she speaks.

“Do you ever imagine a different world, one that’s just out of sight in the fog?” she asks quietly.

“A world where there is no pain, no death, no sorrow?” he answers, just as softly, although his adolescent voice cracks and soars outside of his control.

“Yes,” she breathes, staring up at him in fascination. How amazing, that another human could have the same thoughts and feelings as she. “A world where everyone has a home.”

“Everyone who deserves a home,” corrects the boy.

“Yes.” A thought occurs to her, and she gives it voice. “Do you mean--Muggles?”

“Of course,” he says, and there is a hard edge to his voice. “They clearly don’t deserve to live in this perfect world that we could make. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes,” she says, and she takes his hand and squeezes it. She likes that word: “we”. It opens up a door in her mind--perhaps she can be part of the creation of the new world that fills her dreams.

The two children stand silent for a long time, so long that the fog burns away on the opposite bank of the river and the reality comes clear. There is no perfect world over there, only browning grass and the distant skyline of an all-Muggle city. The anger rears up again as the girl is reminded of her loss.

“How can we ever make a perfect world when there are so many unworthy beings still alive?” she asks bitterly.

The boy looks down at her, for she is shaking slightly with rage. Tentatively, he raises his hand and strokes her shining dark hair soothingly, though he also feels the fury in his own heart. Slowly, the girl’s shaking subsides, and she leans her head against the boy’s shoulder. She breathes in, out, in, out, and with each breath the world seems bigger, fuller of possibility.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you at school,” the boy says after a time. “Are you a student at Hogwarts?”

“Yes,” she answers, her head still on his shoulder. “I got the acceptance letter only last week.”

“Oh,” he says. “You’re only a first year.”

“And how old are you?” she asks, a bit of tease in her voice.

“Fourth year,” he says. He is embarrassed to be so affectionate with a girl so much younger than he. Eager to change the subject, he remarks, “I know some people in my year who also want to see a perfect world, one with no Muggles or Mudbloods. You should meet them, they’d like you.” I like you, he almost says, but he resists.

“Muggles and Mudbloods are the reason for the imperfection in the world?” the girl asks. She has never before heard such a thought said out loud, though her father seems to believe it.

“Oh, definitely,” the boy says adamantly. “Don’t you think so?”

She ponders for a moment. By all logic, it makes sense. Her mother had been alive until the Muggles had begun their stupid war. If her mother had not been killed, the girl would not be so lost and confused. All her sadness, and all the grief of her family members, comes from the Muggles. It was their fault. It is their fault.

“Yes,” she whispers, and then “Yes,” she says more clearly. “They are standing in the way of the perfect world for wizardkind.”

“Rodolphus, Bellatrix!” shouts Aunt Walburga. “Come inside now, children.”

They turn away from the river and walk back to the house, where the girl has lived her whole life, where Druella Rosier Black will never live again, and which Bellatrix Black will never think of as home again.

A bird alights on the sill of an upper story window and preens its feathers. Only that one window is open out of the whole dingy, crumbling brick house on the top of the lonely hill. The other windows are latched, shuttered tight, and forbidding as frowning eyes. This window should be closed as well, but summer proves too beautiful to resist for the dark-haired boy who opened this window out of his dim bedroom.

The same boy clings to the inside of the sill and stares with wide eyes at the bird, which ruffles its wings and haughtily ignores the attention. The bird is a rare sign of life for the boy; he only ever sees his mother and her husband. He will not call the man “father”, even in his mind. A man who keeps his family locked in a house of fear and abuse is no father of his.

There he is now, driving his smelly car up the hill and parking in front of the decrepit garage. The boy glares hatred at the man as he climbs out onto the scraggly grass of the front lawn and glances up at the house. Mad rage suddenly takes the man’s face, frightening in the suddenness of the change, and he bellows, “Who opened that goddamn window?”

The boy draws breath sharply and slams the window shut, startling the bird into flight. He throws himself onto his bed and resists the urge to cover his head with a pillow. He is no longer a child; eleven-year-olds don’t hide from their enemies.

Eleven-year-olds don’t cry, either, but he can’t keep the tears from squeezing out to run down his thin, sallow face. There will be trouble tonight, for him and for his mother. His only hope is that the man will get drunk too fast to vent his anger on his family and will quickly pass out on the living room floor. If not, the boy can only look forward to a horrible fight and a wallop around the head, just like almost every night.

The bedroom door flies violently open, and the boy instinctively cowers against the wall, but there is no one in the doorway. The door swings back and forth as if caught in a strong wind, and then finally bangs closed again. The boy grips his head and tries to push the strangeness back inside him. He’s done it again; whenever he gets emotional, or angry, or afraid, odd things happen. And the man does not like it when odd things happen in the house.

Downstairs, his mother speaks timidly and quietly, but the man overruns her. Unlike the boy’s mother, the man makes himself heard.

“That son of yours is opening windows again, Eileen,” he shouts. “Is there nothing I can do to get it through his thick head that the windows stay shut?”

His mother tries to speak, but the man is too loud.

“What do you mean, he’s my son too? Oh no, woman, he is no son of mine. How can he be, with the Devil so strong in him? I only let him live here because he is your child, the spawn of you and some demon of witchcraft!”

“He is your son!” Eileen cries shrilly, finally making herself audible. “He is your son and none other’s, and magic is not of the Devil!”

There is a loud smack and a cry, and the boy cringes. He hates hearing the man hurt his mother, but if he interferes he risks injury himself. The bruised finger-marks on his upper arm is a strong reminder of the man’s capacity for violence.

He hears another smack, and anger overcomes fear. He is not a child any longer. He is too old now to behave like a baby. The man will regret hurting his mother.

The boy pulls open the bedroom door and races down the stairs. The house is dark as usual, though the sun is not even close to setting. A single light shines in the kitchen, and the boy runs in that direction.

He faces a familiar scene: the man towering over his mother, his fist raised; his mother pushed up against a wall, her arms protecting her head; the chairs pulled askew at the table, products of the man’s crazy rage; and a bottle of liquor on the counter, already half empty.

“Get away from her!” shouts the boy, trying to retain a determined face while striving to keep a quiver from his voice.

The man turns on him, and now the boy can see his mother’s face. A fresh red weal, livid against her bloodless skin, dominates from cheekbone to jaw. She meets her son’s horrified eyes, and the fear on her visage doubles.

“Severus, don’t --” she begins in a frightened voice, but the man cuts her off.

“Stay out of this, boy,” he growls menacingly. “It’s none of your business.”

“Get away from her,” the boy repeats. His fingers clench into fists, the knuckles whitening. The man sees and laughs unpleasantly.

“Gonna fight me, are you, boy?” he leers. “You don’t have the nerve. Go ahead, try me, you coward.”

“I’m not a coward!” the boy yells. He doesn’t understand the strangeness that fills him, but he knows enough to tap into it. With a whistle of sudden wind, the bottle on the counter rises into the air and comes down -- crack -- on the back of the man’s head. The glass shatters with a sound like wind chimes, and the amber liquid soaks the man’s black hair so that it hangs around his face in greasy ropes.

A single stream of liquor crawls down the man’s forehead, flowing through the valley between his glowering eyebrows, reaching the tip of his nose to quiver there. He wipes it away slowly and flicks the moisture from his finger without making a sound. The boy battles the instinct to back away. The man is no longer an angry bear; the danger is now akin to a snake’s slow coil, and the boy cannot predict when the man will strike.

When the eruption comes, it is unnaturally swift and brutal. With a feral roar of wrath, the man advances and strikes the boy so that he reels into the wall, the room winking with colorful lights. Dimly, he can hear his mother’s pleading -- “Tobias, no, please!” -- and the man’s deranged ranting -- “I swear to god I’ll beat the Devil out of you, I’ll teach you to use that witchcraft in my house!”

The blows are too fast and hard for an eleven-year-old to return in kind, and when his head slams into the floor, darkness creeps in on the corners of the boy’s vision. As he falls unconscious, he panics for one moment--what will happen to his mother?’’--but the darkness is too persistent, and he collapses into the void…

************************************************************************

The boy delicately fingers the huge knot on the back of his head and thinks again that he is lucky the injuries aren’t worse. His mother tells him that after he passed out, the man lost interest and, concluding that he’d taught the boy a strong-enough lesson, began his nightly ritual of drinking himself to sleep. He is still lost to the world, snoring like a troll in his bed as his wife cleans up the mess he left in the kitchen.

“If you hadn’t left us,” she tells the boy as he helps to sweep up the broken glass that glitters like shards of ice on the grimy wooden floor, “he might have killed you.”

“Why is he so -- so --” The boy cannot find a word to describe the man. “Why does he do these things to us?”

“He is a different kind of man,” his mother says sadly, tucking a wispy strand of hair behind her ear.

“You mean he doesn’t have magic?” It is the first time the boy has admitted, even to himself, that the strangeness in him is more than strangeness, and that is mother has it as well.

“That is part of it,” she says. “But even wizards can be cruel.”

“But wizards don’t treat other wizards so bad,” he points out. “Right?”

She shakes her head helplessly.

“Severus, I don’t want you to think that all Muggles are bad,” she says.

But it is too late. Any man who beats him must have something inherently wrong inside him, and what could be more wrong than not having magic?

“Why did you marry him?” he asks bitterly. “How could you?”

“He was not like he is now,” she says, and a light of memory appears in her eyes. “He was kinder, gentler, his temper was not as hot or as fierce. I thought he would keep me safe.”

“You were wrong.”

“Please, don’t criticize your father,” his mother pleads. “I know he is cruel to us, but he is your father.”

“He’s no father of mine,” the boy says spiritedly. “I’m your son. I’m a Prince.”

She smiles wanly and gingerly hugs him, careful to treat his ribs gently. A tear grows in her eye, but she wipes it away.

A tapping at the kitchen window breaks them apart. A tawny owl blinks at them with enormous yellow eyes and taps the window with his beak again. A letter is tied to one of its legs.

With a nervous glance to the doorway, Eileen quickly opens the window and accepts the letter. The owl ruffles its wings professionally and takes off through the windows, which is immediately shut behind it.

“I think this is for you,” she says to the boy, and he takes the yellowish envelope. Green ink spells out his name and address, and a purple wax seal bears a strange crest: a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake.

Upon opening the letter, the boy reads:

“Dear Mr. Snape,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

He stops and looks up at his mother.

“What’s Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?”

“Oh, Severus, it’s the best place for a boy like you!” she exclaims happily. “You’ll learn how to use you power, how to channel your magic properly. Every young witch and wizard should go to Hogwarts, it’s a wonderful school.”

The boy stares at the letter in his hands. It is his ticket out, he thinks. And if he learns enough magic, he will be ever so much more powerful than his father. He will be capable of enacting revenge on the man and all who are like him. Maybe he will even find friends, people his own age who feel the same way as he does.

A slow grin grows on his face, bringing pain as it stretches his deep bruises, but he does not wince. He is a wizard now, not a boy, not a coward. He will leave this hell of a home and find a new world, but he will return. He will come back to the tumbledown house on the lonely hill and see to it that the man, his father who was never a father, pays for what he has done to Eileen and Severus Prince.