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PART ONE
Family, feuds and rugfires.
"He did it, Mum!" wailed the diminutive girl, pointing a finger with
a bitten nail at her brother. "He burned the rug.
EVERYONE knows you shouldn't put powdered Screwt Spleens into orange juice.
He nicked that from my potions set you got me for my birthday. MUM..."
Severus made a rude gesture at her from behind his mother's back.
Sevina gave an offended wail.
"He flicked me the bird, Mum!"
Mum Snape spun on her heels, folded her arms and raised an eyebrow at her son.
Sevina, once her mother's back was towards her, returned the gesture to her twin,
secure in the knowledge that the visual reply couldn't be seen.
Severus made a mental note of how authoritative his mother's pose looked and
resolved to adopt it as his own.
"May I suggest," continued Mum Snape, That the two of you - and don't think
I don't know what you're doing behind my back, young lady - resolve your differences
before your father gets home."
The tone of her voice was flat but still managed to convey a great deal of menace
to the two ten year old siblings. Severus heaved a big sigh and Sevina pouted.
"WELL?"
"Yes, Mum!" came the reply, followed by two sets of stamping feet as they
went to continue the bickering upstairs whilst their mother tried to salvage the
smoking hearth rug.
Later that night, after much negotiation, hair pulling, curse casting and
general sibling threats they both sat on the stairs tolerating each other.
They heard their father return, slam the door, grumble a sour greeting to their
mother then go into the dining room to eat. As usual he found everything to
complain about. The house was cold. The food was too spicy.
The rug looked different. It seemed that nothing that they or their mother did
could ever satisfy the man. Nothing was good enough.
It seemed that hardly a week went past when they didn't hear Mum crying quietly
when she thought they were sleeping. Consequently, Severus and Sevina had learned
early in life to just keep out of his way. Sevina looked at her brother.
His jaw was set rigid in anger.
"Why doesn't she leave him?" Sevina asked.
"Scared of him, I guess," came the reply, "He's a bully and would hunt us
all down and bring us back."
"Maybe it's us, Sevvy. Maybe they were happy before us." Sevina began to
sniffle.
"Who knows," he answered, giving his sister a small kiss on the top of her
dark head. She was oldest by about fifteen minutes but, all said and done, he
stood three inches taller so she was his 'little sis' by default. "Come on.
It'll get better when we go to school and learn. You know he puts great stock
on education. Maybe we can make him love us if we get good O.W.L.S. and N.E.W.T.S."
He ruffled her neat cut bobbed hair and got a punch in the arm for his actions.
"Look here 'Vina, one day I'll make him proud of me. Just you see!
One day I'll get a good education and teach Herbology.
One day I'll be teaching eager kids all about flowers.
One day I'll be a better dad than him. One day...."
He stopped short and raised his eyebrow at his sister who was now trying to
stifle a laugh. "What is SO funny?"
"S'gonna be one helluva busy day, one day, Sevvy.
You sure you can fit all that in?"
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