Chapter Text
Severus is 16 when his mother dies and the world became just that much colder.
He is 16 when he and his father stand over the small grave at the local church. No others are present. Well, more like no one else bothers to show. The Snapes aren’t well liked in their tiny, rundown town, so it wasn’t a surprise that no one attends his mother’s funeral.
He never sees the man and woman disillusioned far behind them, off to the side.
He never sees or hears the woman sobbing quietly into the man’s shoulder.
He does not see the way the arm the man has around the woman’s shoulders tightens slightly when Tobias murmurs something to the boy, and they watch Severus flinch before nodding tightly. Even though Severus has held himself together with so much willpower his jaw aches from how tightly he clenches it, and he can feel bitter tears welling his eyes, his shoulders shake, and he keeps up a mantra to not cry in front of the gruff man.
He returns to an empty home. Gone is his mother's soft humming from the kitchen, the house is now devoid of the semi comfortable presence of his mother cooking what meagre offerings they have in the cabinets for dinner. He can’t smell the scent of the cheap washing powder that should be perfuming the air after a Sunday out with his Pa. He can’t feel the tingle of magic on his skin that he knows his father would have ranted about. Severus, instead of going into the kitchen to help his mother finish his father’s dinner, goes straight to his room to sob on his thin mattress.
He is 16 when, a week after the funeral, the man shows up to his doorstep and everything changed.
The man has tanned skin, a dark and unseasonably lightweight suit, dark hair and pale eyes. He stands on his doorstep and extends a single, thick, envelope. Severus' father isn't home, he had mumbled something about the pub and drinks and excuses. Reasons he couldn't be in the house, sorting through his dead wife's things. So Severus is alone, nothing but the darkness of the horribly lit halls and the odd creaking to keep him company.
He looks down at the envelope, stared at it for a moment before he looks up at the man who stared back with no sense of urgency and didn't so much as move. Something in the envelope calls to him, demands that he take it and open it. Something familiar.
There was a single line on the front, a number one that he knows is his mother's writing. How could this man, this stranger have it?
“What is this?” he asks, voice hoarse from days without use and barely restrained tears. The house is too quiet when his father isn't home, banging around the kitchen seeing out booze and food, calling to his mother before he stops short and grumbles an almost sad, “oh, right …” before he turns, climbs the old creaky stairs, and stomps into his bedroom.
“A chance, if you would like it,” the man's voice is soft, sounding like soothing waves crashing against the shore in the midst of the summer. It brings Severus memories of that one summer, the one where—
“A chance… at what?” he asks, pulling himself from the memory. No need to think about that now, not when this is more important.
“A new life.”
Severus looks over the envelope, at the single crow imprinted into the wax seal holding it shut, the number one on the front, the secrets that it holds inside. Does he take it, if only as a means to have something that his mother touched? One last thing that is just Him and Her and no one else. He can feel her magic lingering on the thick paper. It feels purposeful and familiar and even if the contents are something he doesn't want, he feels he should take it either way.
“You can,” the man continued, “sleep on it. Take your time reading the contents and processing them. I will return tomorrow for your answer.” Then he is walking back down the worn concrete path leading to Severus' doorstep, out the short gate, and apparating away with a shift pop.
Severus closes the door, locking it with practiced familiarity and a sense of finality, then heads back up to his bedroom. The envelope sits atop his sheet, staring up at him with his mother's handwriting and secrets within.
A chance, the man had said. Severus could use a chance, and if it is connected to his mother, then it may very well be worth it. He opens the letter, picking at the edge of the seal with his fingernail until it lifts entirely and separates itself from the rest. Inside is a single page, a letter, and a ring. Though simple, the ring is heavy. The stone set into it is small, round, and swirling with magic and colour. Shades of blue and green and gold lazily move about within and call to him. He, instead, turns his focus to the letter and sets to reading it.
Severus,
If you are reading this, I have died. Mourn, my crow, but do not do so for long.
The man that delivered this letter, Kirlos, will not be able to wait long.
The Isla where he is from is our home, our true home, that I left many, many years ago. Your father cannot find you there.
You now hold in your hands the only means to claim what is rightfully yours, if you want.
If not, burn this letter, return the ring to Kirlos, send him home. He will deal with the rest.
All of my love forever more,
Your mother, Eileen J. Prince
Severus reads the short letter.
He reads it again.
No explanation. No ‘Sorry I left you’. Nothing.
Just… this.
For a moment, he feels something akin to anger flaring up inside him, clawing at the inside of his chest and demanding to be set free. He feels his fingertips warm and each breath he takes in feels like drowning all over again. Where he still holds the page, the paper begins to discolour as if burned and he drops it onto his lap. For a long while, he sits staring down at the words, tracing over his mothers looping cursive and wishing the sparse letter had more… something. Explanations, comfort, something.
An hour later, he takes the paper in his hands again, feeling the weight of the page, the quality that in and of itself was a hint to something else he had no words nor answer for. He can’t sleep. He spends the night alternating between staring at the letter and playing with the ring, reading each line of his mothers handwriting over and over, folding it and shoving it into his pocket only to take it back out after an unease settles in his fingertips again and he pulls it free to repeat the process again. He turns the ring over and over between his fingers but never slips it on. He studies the inscription inside the band in neat lettering that he can somehow read despite never having studied this language.
σκοτάδι επικρατεί, τίποτα δεν πάει χαμένο - darkness reigns, nothing is lost
He finds himself wondering why he can read this, why he knows these words and what they mean. Wondering why it is he thinks he would be able to speak this clearly despite not even knowing what language it is?
When the man, Kirlos, returns in the morning, Severus is sitting on the step, ring on his thumb, and his school trunk full to the brim with his entire life packed away inside at his feet.
Kirlos looks down at him, takes him in from head to toe, looks over the trunk. Severus appears as if he hadn't slept a wink (he hadn't, he remained up all night, staring, reading, toying) but Kirlos says nothing. He simply nods, takes up the trunk, and steps to the left to allow Severus to lead them out of the front yard.
“Where are we going?” Severus asks, his voice much stronger and clearer than he expected.
“Home, Lord Prince,” Kirlos says, a slight smile on his face.
Then they disappear, not to be seen in Cokeworth for a while yet.