The Marauders: Year Two | #Wattys2016

The Cinema

The Cinema

Severus sat in the window of the library at Spinner's End. It was pouring rain outside and on the edges of the horizon, there was a thunderstorm brewing, flickering lightning every few minutes. The droplets sped down the pane past him as he stared out over the dreary, narrow street he lived on. Everything was abysmal and grey and horrid. Outside, a cat streaked down the uneven cobblestoned road, shrieking as it went - there were no other signs of life out there, though. It wasn't unusual, either. Even when it was sunny and beautiful, Spinner's End and all the other streets that ran adjacent to it were typically void of life.

Life just wasn't worth living on Spinner's End, Severus thought.

They'd come back to the house while Voldemort was away, doing Merlin knew what, out of the country. The Malfoy mansion was only welcoming when he was there. Otherwise, it was too obvious that the other followers of Voldemort only accepted Eileen Prince and her half-blood son because Voldemort did. When his eyes were turned, however, she was not welcome and by extension, neither was Severus - though he got the distinct impression that, should he choose to turn his back on her, they would've gladly taken him in as their own.

But he wasn't about to abandon his mother, however ashamed of her the family was.

And besides, being home at Spinner's End meant that he was within walking distance to the Evans' home and the pond where Lily often came to see him.

When the rain started to let up, Severus got up from the bench and shouted to Eileen that he was going out and, without waiting to hear her response, he ducked out the door, tucking his wand into his belt.

He kept his wits about him until he'd gotten out of his own neighborhood - it was so rough, you just never knew when you'd need to draw the wand in self-defense, and Severus stayed at the ready. They'd ended up there because it was low cost housing and that was all that Tobias Snape had been able to afford before he died, and it was all that they'd bothered to keep of his - the dismal little house in the middle of a bad neighborhood. "One day," Eileen promised him all of the time, "We'll buy a manor, like the Malfoy's have got and we'll have a house elf and we'll be treated like royalty, like we deserve."

Severus would've been okay with just being treated like human like he deserved some days.

The Evans lived in a little house in a small, good neighborhood, which was up a long hill, past the pond, and through an old school yard playground, which was where he and Lily had met, many years ago, when she'd jumped from the swingset and he'd watched her slow herself down before hitting the ground to stop herself getting hurt. She'd done it without knowing she'd done it at all, but he'd recognized it for what it was - the first vestiges of magic. It had been shortly after that when he'd approached her and told her about Hogwarts. He didn't fit in with the people that lived in Lily's neighborhood - he stuck out like a sore thumb there - which was why he rarely came all the way to her house. He hated the way people looked at him. It was similar to the way that James Potter and the other Gryffindor boys looked at him. At least Sirius Black had a reason to - with the family history and everything that was tied him - but James Potter barely had a clue who Severus Snape was. It was James Potter's stare, therefore, that bothered him most.

Lily's sister was outside, holding a little umbrella, even though the rain had stopped. She was talking to a couple of girls that Severus didn't recognize - they probably went to school with Petunia during the year. It always made Severus marvel at how completely different the two sisters were, considering they were twins. Petunia's hair was dark and coarse and her eyes were a different shade of green - more like a hazel. Lily's hair was fire red and soft and her eyes were the perfect bottle green that Severus so loved. Not to mention their personalities were like night and day.