His mother handed him a small, black velvet pouch and told him he should go to his room, put out all the lights, close the blinds and then examine its contents. Severus bounced the bag in his hand several times, noting that it had almost no weight. He realised that magic might somehow be concealing the nature of whatever was inside. His curiosity peaked. The tiniest smile pulled at the corners of his mouth and excitement gleamed in his eyes. He darted through the hallway and up the stairs, his mother following behind him at a much more deliberate pace.

His room could not be more different from the rest of the house. While the other chambers seemed to suffer from conditions of severe clutter and general neglect, Severus’s room was in perfect order. All of his belongings were neatly stored on shelves: several old books with tattered covers, a few jars containing murky liquids or odd plants, and a chess set that had several pieces that had been broken. His clothes, shoddy and grey as they may have been, hung tidily in the closet, the door of which stood halfway open. No toys, comic books, or games littered the floor as one might expect in the bedroom of a ten-year-old. The worn area rug was free from any blemish not resulting from age, and under the window sat a dark brown, shabby-looking desk. A book entitled Ten Must-Know Potions for O.W.L.s and How to Master Them lay open on the desk under a tarnished brass reading light.

Severus crossed the room to his desk, turned off the lamp, and then went to the windows and drew the blinds. Then he sat down on his bed while his mother stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind her to block out the light from the hallway. She leaned up against it, watching her son’s silhouette. The room was now quite dark.

After loosening the strings at the top, Severus turned the bag upside down over his cupped right hand and gently shook the pouch. He felt four tiny objects land in the palm of his hand. Based on the sensation, he guessed they might be pebbles or seashells, very small ones.

“I don’t get it,” he stated when nothing happened at first. “What are these …?”

His voiced trailed off as a faint green glow began to emanate from his palm. The light pulsed and continued to grow brighter. After a few moments, an eerie lime light saturated the room nearly as brightly as daylight unobstructed through the window would have. He could now see the four minute gems, which he guessed were emeralds, giving off light in his hand.

Severus’s eyes became wide and his mouth hung open slightly. “Wow!” he gasped. “Where did you get these?”

“I don’t even remember,” his mother answered. “I’d forgotten I had them, to tell you the truth. I found them when I was going through one of my drawers last week.”

Severus sat mesmerized for a moment, but then suddenly closed his hand, concealing most of the glow. He turned quickly to his mother. “Why didn’t you sell them? These must be worth a fortune.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she replied, waving the idea aside. “Those stones are probably too small to be worth anything to a jeweller.”

“But,” Severus protested, “they’re magic, they’re not just ordinary stones. Look,” he said, extending his arm toward her and opening his hand again. Once again, the green light filled the room. “Someone would give you a bag of galleons for these, I’m sure of it. You’d be able to pay off that man who keeps coming round about the money we owe. You might even have enough left over to get those new robes you want.”

Eileen Snape looked down at herself. Severus had the impression that she was somewhat ashamed of the faded and torn state of her robes. Several hand-sewn patches were visible on them. She looked back to her son. “I sold a silver necklace that belonged to your grandmother last week.”

“You what?” Severus gaped at her.

“Oh, it was a very pretty necklace, but it never meant much to me, truthfully. Besides, in exchange, they gave me enough Muggle money to catch up on the mortgage and buy some groceries. With any luck, I’ll make some good tip money this week.”

“Working as a waitress in a Muggle restaurant?” Severus replied as though the idea disgusted him. “It doesn’t seem to be a fitting job for a witch.”

After flipping the switch to turn on the light, Eileen crossed the room and sat on the bed beside her son, wrapping one arm around him. “Sometimes things get hard, dear, and good jobs aren’t so easy to find. It’s not always a question of doing what you’d like. Sometimes, you have to make do when the situation is not ideal.”

Severus looked at the stones in his hand, a perplexed look on his face. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t sell them.” His stomach was twisting and turning inside. With the knowledge that his family was so poor, that his mother had to sell one of the few precious possessions she had just to make ends meet, knowing he possessed something so valuable did not sit well with him.

“That’s easy,” Eileen smiled. “You should have seen the look on your face when you first opened that pouch and those stones started to glow. The wonder and amazement in your eyes … it’s not an easy a thing for a mother to accomplish with such an intelligent son. I wouldn’t trade that expression for all the galleons in the world.”

From the floor below, the sound of a door opening and slamming shut broke the momentary silence that had grown between mother and son. Eileen looked over her shoulder with an expression of dismay, then turned back and kissed her son on the forehead.

“Put those away now. Don’t show them to your father, alright?”

Severus’s eyes met his mother’s. Her face wore a kind smile, but the look in her eyes could not have been more serious. Without discussing the subject at all, he knew exactly what she meant and nodded. “Yes, mum.”

He reached underneath his bed and pulled out a plainly finished, wooden box that seemed to be just big enough to hold a loaf of bread. On the front, there was a brass clasp with a small lock on it. Severus withdrew a silver key from his pocket, inserted it into the lock and turned it, causing the lock to pop open.

“Is that the box you made from that shoddy wood kit your father gave you?”

“Yes,” he answered. Suddenly, an idea of how to secure the precious stones jumped into his head. “I wonder … can you put a charm on this box so you can only get into it with one of the keys to the lock?” he asked, holding out two silver keys.

“I think so,” she replied. She watched him drop the velvet pouch into the box and lock it again. She drew her wand, appeared to go into deep concentration for a few seconds, then tapped the box with the end of her wand. It glowed brilliantly for a second or two. “There, that ought to do it. From now on, only one of the keys that open that lock will open this box,” she said, pointing her wand at the lock. “Simple charm, but it’s effective. It should keep anything in that box safe. It’s beautiful, by the way. You did a lovely job!”

“It was easy,” Severus responded. “All I had to do was follow directions.”

“You’d be surprised how many people couldn’t do as nicely following those same directions. Now, get into bed, get a good night’s rest. You’ve got school tomorrow.”

“Yes, mum,” Severus replied obediently, sliding the box back under the bed and then watching his mother turn to leave the room. As he began to remove his robes, a worried expression grew on his face. “Is he going to … hit you again?”

Eileen froze in her tracks and turned back to her son. In an instant, the colour from her face seemed to have gone. Severus wondered if his mother had ever realised, before that moment, that her son knew exactly what was going on between his parents. She forced a smile and did her best to diffuse her son’s concern.

“Don’t be silly.”

With that, she exited and closed the door behind her. Thirty minutes later, Severus lay awake listening to the sound of his father’s rage, the sound of his fists smashing and breaking anything they could find, and the sound of his mother’s screams and sobs as she pleaded with him to stop. For a moment, he thought of going downstairs and trying to help her. He knew from previous experiences, which had left deep purple and yellowish bruises all over his body, that doing so would only make things worse. Instead, he covered his head with his pillow so he couldn’t hear anything anymore.

---

Lily and Severus were sitting on swings in a park that was about halfway between each of their houses. It was a crisp September evening, sparkling stars filling the cloudless sky. Severus noticed very quickly that something wasn’t right with Lily. Normally, she would have been showing him her latest trick, swinging as fast as she could and then jumping off at maximum height. Before landing gently on her feet, she would have done a flip, a twist or both in mid-air. Instead, she sat there rather motionless, looking down at her feet as they dragged in shredded wood that covered the ground below their feet.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

She sighed deeply before looking at him. “I think Petunia is starting to hate me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” Lily answered, looking like she was about to break down in tears.

The gears wound hard inside Severus’s head. He did not want her to see her cry. He got to see her alone so rarely that he did not want to have that time spoiled in any way. Still, it did not immediately occur to him what to say to a girl to stop her from crying. He elected to express what he felt was the truth.

“She’s jealous,” he stated simply. He found out very quickly that it was not a good idea.

“I know that, Sev,” Lily replied with a measure of anger sufficient to cause Severus to lean away from her. “Who wouldn’t want to be a witch? Who wouldn’t want to be able to do magic?” Lily finished poignantly by raising her arms up to shoulder height and then letting them fall back against her sides with a loud thwap. She fell silent for a moment, and Severus could see tears streaming down her face. Finally, she spoke in a soft voice that broke halfway through her next sentence, “I’m not so sure I want to do magic if it means my sister hates me.”

Severus did not have a reply. His eyes sank to his own feet and he kicked a few woodchips across the ground. No matter how hard he forced himself to concentrate, he could think of nothing to say about the situation to cheer her up. Finally, he sent his eyes northward to the darkening night sky. His jaw dropped.

“Look,” he said enthusiastically.

In the sky to the north, there were several lines of dancing green lights. His immediate impression was of green fire burning just above the tree line. Lily’s eyes became wide and, for the first time that evening, she smiled.

“It’s so beautiful, Severus.”

Feelings rushed up from somewhere deep inside him and then formed into words. Before he could scan them, before he had the chance to censor them, they escaped him. “Just like your eyes.”

He cringed, unsure how she would take the comment, but to his surprise, she did not say anything. He avoided looking at her for what seemed like a long time before saying hopefully, “You didn’t hear me, did you?”

“Yes,” she replied. “I heard you. It was very sweet of you to say.”

Severus took a deep breath in relief, seeing that her mood had improved, and the two of them sat there for the next half hour watching the amazing green lights slither and shimmy gracefully across the night. Suddenly, he heard something in his mind, though he had no idea where it had come from. It was a female’s voice, Lily’s, but he didn’t know how it had gotten there. He had wished in the past, on more than one occasion, he could read her mind. However, he had never succeeded. He didn’t know how to work that particular magic. Still, her voice was there, clear in his head as though it was his own.

If only I could take them home with me, her voice said.

---

Lily was sitting on the swings staring at the ground, wallowing over the worst row with her sister yet. She was highly conscious of the escalating resentment in her sister, and she found it very troubling. Before she could sink too deep into her thoughts, however, she noticed that Severus had failed to appear as he always had done when she showed up at the park alone. She couldn’t explain it, but she just had a feeling something was wrong.

She got to her feet and set out in what she thought to be the direction of Spinner’s End, knowing full well she didn’t know the exact location of his house. Something inside her, however, seemed to guide her to all the right streets and ensure she made all correct turns. Finally, she stood in front of a dark, dilapidated house. After following her unconscious thoughts for so long, she had no idea exactly where she stood. She was aware of the fact that she was not in what most considered a good neighbourhood, and felt certain that she would be in a lot of trouble if her parents found out where she had gone.

After several minutes, she finally worked up the nerve to extend her hand and knock on the door. She heard some rustling inside the house, then sound of footsteps approaching. She heard a lock clicking and then the door swung open.

Lily’s immediate impression of the woman she saw standing there was the textbook, Muggle definition of a witch. She had a long crooked nose, deep black eyes, and pale, almost yellow looking skin. One of her eyes had deep purple bruises circling it, and she noticed immediately that this woman had the same hair as Severus, only longer.

“Does Severus live here?” Lily asked timidly.

“Yes, dear,” the woman replied. “I am his mother.”

“Is he alright?”

“He’s had a bit of an accident, I’m afraid,” she said, crossing her arms and surveying Lily as if she had never seen anything like her. “He’s up in his room right now, but I think he is awake if you would like to go see him.”

“May I?” Lily asked. “I just want to know he’s alright.”

“Of course,” the woman answered, stepping aside. “Right up the stairs,” she said motioning toward the staircase covered in a dirty, green carpet. “First door on the left.”

“Thank you,” Lily smiled.

---

Severus received a jolt of several things in equal measure when his bedroom door opened and he saw Lily enter: excitement, happiness, shame, and shock. For a moment, he considered pulling his covers over his face to hide it from her sight, but it was too late. By the time this occurred to him, she had already made eye contact. She was unable to suppress a look of horror.

“Severus,” she squeaked, putting a hand up to cover her mouth. “What happened?”

She had noticed numerous, angry red bumps covering his face. They looked something like large pimples with burn marks around their bases.

“Lightning wasps,” he answered simply.

“What?”

He pointed over to his desk where a glass jar stood. Inside, Lily saw about a half dozen very large wasps with glowing yellow tails buzzing around angrily. Every now and then, she saw a spark inside as one of them attempted to sting the jar.

“They don’t like it much when you get too close to their nest.”

Lily had walked over to the desk to get a closer look. As soon as she bent over to look at them up close, the number of sparks began to increase rapidly. Soon, it looked like a miniature thunderstorm inside the jar.

“Wow,” Lily gasped, her nose only inches from the jar. “They’re furious!”

“Whatever you do, don’t loosen the top of that jar, or your face end up will looking like mine,” Severus warned.

Lily turned and looked at him. Up close, the marks looked much more painful than they had from a distance. She winced as she counted at least twenty of them. “Do they hurt?”

Severus shrugged. “Not anymore. Mum’s given me a healing potion and a draught for pain. I actually don’t feel anything. I’ll bet you could punch me right now, as hard as you could, and I wouldn’t feel a thing.”

“Why would I want to punch you?” Lily asked, pulling the chair out from Severus’s desk, turning it to face his bed, and then sitting down on it. “What were you doing near a nest of those things anyway?” she demanded, pointing to the jar.

“I needed to catch a few of them. I need their venom.”

“What?” Lily laughed, bemused. “Why?”

Severus hesitated then stumbled through his reply. “It’s for … a school project.”

“A school project?” Lily’s eyes narrowed as though she found it hard to believe. “What sort of teacher assigns their students a task that is so dangerous?”

Severus rolled his eyes and smiled. “The teacher did not say the project had to involve lightning wasps or anything else dangerous. It was all my idea, catching the wasps and all.”

“I cannot imagine what you could make with using the venom from such vicious … bugs,” Lily said, shaking her head.

“It’s going to be amazing,” Severus answered. “You’ll see.”

“Really?” Lily’s curiosity seemed to be rising quickly. “Can I see what you have so far?”

A horrified look washed over Severus’s face. “No,” he answered a little more sharply than he meant to. Realising this, he backtracked. “I mean, not until I'm done. If … that’s okay with you.”

Lily inclined her head and smiled. “Fine, if you promise I can see it when you’re done.”

“I promise.”

---

Severus paced back and forth across his room, nerves pulsing inside him, refusing him a few moments’ peace before she arrived. Admittedly, he didn’t like the idea of her coming to his house. He was ashamed of its overall state even though he kept his own room very clean. There simply was no alternative. He could not show it to her in the park and, with her pesky sister likely to be all over them the moment he set foot inside, her house was out of the question.

He lifted the green cloth covering it on his desk and examined his finished product once more. He wasn’t sure if he cared for the lettering job he had done in green paint. It didn’t look professional. Everything else about it gave the impression that a highly skilled craftsman had constructed it. He wondered if he should have just left it off.

“Magic is life, life is magic,” he murmured. He dropped the cloth back over it and a look of disappointment grew on his face. He wondered if he had ruined it.

No sooner than he had recovered it when there was a knock on the door. He turned around just in time to see his mother open it and walk in. Lily followed right behind her.

“Severus, your friend is here.” He caught the funny-looking smile and twinkle in his mother’s eyes as she said it.

“Thank you, Mother,” he replied, his eyes narrowing a little.

Severus thought Lily looked pretty. She had on a turquoise dress, and she had pulled her dark red hair back into a ponytail. Her brilliant green eyes sparkled, and he felt like he could stare at them for as long as she would allow. Butterflies buzzed madly in his stomach, and a smile formed on his face.

Lily, however, did not smile back. After a moment, Severus realised that he had been mistaken. Her eyes were not sparkling. They were on the brink of tears, and she looked very distraught. The momentary joy he had felt that she had actually showed up had caused him to overlook it. He waited until his mother closed the door behind her as she left to begin his inquiry.

“Another fight with your sister?”

Lily did not answer verbally. She just nodded.

“What did she say this time?”

“I … she,” Lily stammered. “She found out I was coming over here today, instead of going to play with her and her other friends. She said she never wanted to speak to me again.”

Severus gulped. He had worked so hard to get everything ready only to have it foiled by Lily’s pathetic, Muggle sister. However, going into a diatribe revealing exactly what he thought of Petunia was not likely to make anything better. Severus knew his only hope was to present an appearance of understanding, even thought his honest answer would be to tell Lily she was better off without anyone who was so narrow-minded.

“She just doesn’t understand,” he said. “And you’ve already said it yourself. She’s jealous. She wants to be a witch too, you can tell.”

Lily nodded. “I know, Sev. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when she says things like that.”

Severus walked over to Lily, half-wishing that Petunia was there so he could give her a piece of his mind. For a moment, he thought about wrapping his arms around Lily into the warmest hug he could deliver. However, doubt tumbled around violently in his belly. Instead, he raised his arm tentatively and gently rubbed her shoulder. The gesture did not go unnoticed. She raised her face to him and smiled.

“She’ll learn to accept you for what you are someday. She’ll see how special you are. I do …” Severus mumbled out the last two words, once again feeling surprised that they made it out of his own mouth.

“Thank you,” she sniffed, wiping her eyes with her wrist.

The brief pause that followed seemed to last an hour. Severus felt like he should say something else, but he could think of nothing to add. He continued to rub Lily’s shoulder, somewhat surprised that she did not protest. Finally, he spoke again.

“I have something for you.”

“For me?” Lily asked, rubbing her eyes again.

Severus walked over to his desk and pulled the green cloth covering the wooden box he had made. He had stripped off the old finish and refinished it with a darker, richer-looking stain. Then, he had hand painted the words magic is life, life is magic in a not-so-perfect circle in green outlined in gold. The letters varied in size and thickness. The lock was still the same silver lock that he had always had on it.

He picked it up and turned to Lily. “Here,” he said, offering it to her after taking a couple steps closer. He could feel his arms trembling and almost tripped over his own feet.

She took it from him with a stunned look on her face. “What is this?”

“I made it for you,” he said, uncertainty dripping from his words. “Here’s the key.”

“You … made this?” Lily asked. Severus nodded. Lily took it and then her eyes fell to the lettering. “Magic is life, life is magic,” she read aloud. “What is that?”

“I found it in a book,” Severus admitted.

“What does it mean?”

Severus had not thought of it until she asked. When he found it, there had not been any definition listed next to it. He fumbled for a second before saying, “I think it means something different to every person.”

“Really?” she said, looking uncertain. “What does it mean to you?”

“I think it means you should feel lucky if you are able to do magic, and you should not let people who are not gifted like you hurt your feelings because they are jealous.” After the words left his mouth, Severus braced himself. He felt sure Lily would take this as a direct assault on Petunia.

Lily blinked and looked back down at the lettering. “You got all of that out of this?”

“What does it mean to you then?” Severus retorted with a small smile.

“That life is magical,” she answered simply.

“That’s it?” Severus asked, looking disappointed.

Lily bobbed her head up and down, smiling brightly. “That’s it,” she echoed.

“You like it, then?”

“Yes,” Lily beamed. “It’s wonderful. I can’t believe you made it. Can I put jewellery and things in here?”

“You don’t know the half of it yet,” Severus boasted, feeling a wonderful rush of relief now that he knew she liked it. “I asked my mother to place a charm on the box. That key I gave you is the only one that opens it. So, whatever you put in there, no one else can get at it unless they manage to get the key from you.”

“Really?” Lily said looking astounded.

“That’s still not the best part,” Severus added; his smile was now so wide it hardly fit on his face. “Set it down on the floor there,” he instructed her, pointing to the centre of the old, brown rug. “But, don’t open it until I tell you.”

She nodded and went to the centre of the room, put the box on the floor, and waited. In the meantime, Severus ran to window, closed the blind, then turned of the light on his desk, then ran to the hallway door, closed it, and then flipped the switch, turning off the ceiling light.

“Now,” he said, “open it.”

Even Severus was surprised that what he had put together worked so well. He had spent countless hours studying the properties of various things like lightning wasps and glow stones. He had made pages of notes on achieving specific effects by mixing certain things together in certain quantities. He had ground two of the emeralds his mother had given him, venom from six lightning wasps, and some pixie dust stolen from one of his mother’s old potions kits into a fine, sparkling paste and used it to line the inside of the box. The instant she had unlocked it and lifted the lid, a glowing ball of pulsing yellow and green light slowly floated out of it. The amount of light it emitted was not tremendous, only like something from a large candle. It spun in mid air, stopping every so often only to resume spinning in a different, random direction.

Suddenly, a blinding green flash occurred, as though someone had just snapped a picture using a camera with a green flash bulb. Lily and Severus both threw their hands up to shield their eyes. After a few seconds, once certain it was gone, they lowered their hands again and both saw the effect Severus had hoped to achieve. Up near the ceiling were several lines and arrays of dancing green streaks, hanging in mid air, looking just like the Aurora Borealis, just as it had shone the night the two of them had seen it in the park.

Lily gasped and covered her mouth. “Oh my goodness, Severus!”

He sat down next to her and looked up at the peaceful green lights as they danced above. “If you ever have doubts about learning more magic, I want you to open this box. I hope it will remind you how wonderful magic can be, how special you can become.”

Lily turned to Severus and kissed him gently on the cheek. “Thank you,” she said with a hint of a sob in her voice. “No one has ever given me anything so … so ….” Her voice trailed off before she repeated, “Thank you, Sev. I love it.”

Severus touched the spot where her lips had pressed against his cheek. His face felt hot and he was relieved it was dark in the room. He was certain he was blushing; his insides were doing somersaults and he felt an urge to kiss her back. However, just as he had failed to work up the courage to hug her before, the urge passed unsatisfied.

“Not at all,” he said. “I’m really glad you like it.”