Chapter 2: 1973
Myrtle, thinking she smelled something fun going on, floated over to the stall where the giggling was coming from.
The window was open, which was unusual for March, unless somebody wanted certain aromas to go unnoticed
Sure enough, she found Lily and Severus, a couple of third years, wedged into the same stall together, the one closest to the window, smoking a joint.
"Hey, if you guys let me have a little tea, I'll be your lookout." Myrtle volunteered.
"Sure. Cool." Lily said, and passed the joint to Myrtle.
"Wow! This is some gooood shit. Where did you get this?"
"Sev."
"I refuse to divulge me source."
Severus and Lily and Myrtle all began to giggle, then Myrtle went off to do her lookout bit.
A head full off weed gave Lily the sort of lightheaded courage she needed to broach a particular subject with her best friend.
"Look at you, Sev, you've got stubble on your chin. Shaving, are you? An' your arms…they're all furry."
She observed.
Severus gave her an odd look.
"Well, I'm nearly 15. I'll be a man soon, won't I?" he replied.
"I know! So, 'ave you got hair on your chest?" Lily asked.
Severus began to choke.
"What?" He gasped.
Lily suddenly felt terribly embarrassed. Just the look on Sev's face let her know she was barking up the wrong tree.
She was ready to draw her wand, blast the stall door off, obliviate Sev of the last few minutes, and flee, but then he sort of looked down his long nose at her and grinned in a way that made Lily feel as though her head was about to burst into large, incandescent flames.
Severus handed her the joint. While she took a drag, he undid the buttons on his robe, pushed his tie aside, and unbuttoned a few buttons on his shirt.
"Not much. Yet." He said
"I thought you would. Me Mum always says, a Northerner's a man by the time he's 15. You're well on your way, then." Lily stammered.
She put out the roach and stuffed it in her pocket, then, to Severus' surprise, she sandwiched herself even closer to him, rubbing his chest.
"Wot about it, then, Sev? Are you a man?"
Lily couldn't believe she was doing what she was doing.
Neither could Snape.
He suddenly wondered if he was a wake, or if he was having another one of those kind of dreams. Could it be? Did the eternal sex goddess of his most depraved adolescent fantasises actually want him as much as he wanted her?
Was fate finally going to be kind to Severus Snape?
Was Lily going to be upset that it wasn't his belt buckle poking her?
Severus suddenly heard his father's voice in his mind.
Remember lad, when it comes to women, if they want ter chase ye, let 'em catch yer. Not only is it stupid to turn a woman down when she comes onto ye, it's rude. If a girl offers ye summat, take it. And be glad you've got it, and gi'her summat to come back for.
"You bet your arse I am." Severus growled, and kissed Lily.
She didn't object.
A good time was generally being had by all until Myrtle, doing her best lookout bit, loomed over the top of the stall.
She could see that Lily and Sev were in a serious clinch, which made things all that much worse.
"Get your shit together! Dumbledore is coming! Dumbledore is coming!" she said.
"Oh shit!" Snape exclaimed.
"Fuck me!" Lily reiterated.
"I was thinking about it." Severus grumbled to himself.
Severus crouched on the top of the toilet so that Dumbledore wouldn't be able to see him, and he flushed the joint, then he and Lily scourgified everything.
She buttoned up her shirt and her robes and smoothed out her clothes, then threw some water on her face in the sink.
Lily made a show of washing her hands in the sink as the Headmaster came in.
"Lily, have you seen Severus? I checked in your study hall, and he wasn't there."
He looked worried.
"Yeah. He went to the gents." Lily lied.
"I just looked in there. Tell him, when he comes back to Study Hall, to report to my office. Immediately. He's not in trouble, but I need to see him, as soon as possible."
Dumbledore left, and Severus came out of the stall, and put himself together, looking in the mirror.
"Do you think its yer Mum?" Lily asked
"I hope not." Severus replied.
He headed for the door, then stopped, turned around, grabbed Lily and kissed her, again.
"We'll finish this, later." He promised.
"I'll hold you to that, Sev. Owl me and let me know what's going on."
***
When Severus Jr. went to the Headmaster's Office and saw Severus Sr. and his grandmother there, he knew it was just as he feared.
"It's Mum isn't it? She's not dead, is she?" he asked his grandfather.
Severus Sr. tugged on his horn, trying to think of what to say.
"Severus, your mother is at St. Mungo's. She's…"
Dumbledore searched for the right words.
"Bottomed out." Aphrodite volunteered.
Sev breathed a sigh of relief.
"Can I go and see her?" he asked his foster father.
"Of course! You may be excused from classes, today. And tomorrow. I'll come around later, at the end of the school day." Dumbledore told him.
***
It was a relatively quiet evening at St. Mungo's, and Edgar Lockheart, the chief medi-wizard on the Psychiatric Ward was about to take his tea-break when an eccentric visitor arrived on the ward.
It was a barrel-chested Scotsman, wearing an army-surplus parka over a kilt, a tee shirt and a pair of Doctor Martens boots, carrying what the medi-wizard at first thought was a rag doll or a mannequin swathed in a thick quilt in his arms.
It was only when he was at the desk that Lockheart realised, to his great horror that the Scotsman was bringing him a patient.
"Can someone here see to me wife? I'm a Muggle, but she's a witch." He asked the medi-wizard.
"By the Mother!" the medi-wizard exclaimed, and summoned and army of healers, medi-wizards and witches and nurses who swooped down on the Scotsman and bundled his away his bag of rag and bone with some grey skin stretched over them.
Lockheart rushed off with his patient, leaving the Scotsman alone, sitting in an overstuffed chair, unsure what to do with his hands.
***
It seemed like an eternity to Tobias before the doctor, or whatever he was called, returned.
"Tell me if she's dead. Don't fuck about, don't say how sorry ye are. Just tell me if she's dead." He said.
"We've managed to stabilise her. I'm not sure how long she'll live; I've never seen a human being in such a sad condition. Do you know how she came to be in this state, Mister…"
"Snape. Tobias Snape. Your patient's name is Eileen Snape. And I haven't much of an idea how she got so bad. She run off from home about three months ago, maybe four. I put me foot down, I said I'd have no more fucking smack in our house. We 'ad to give up our son, on account of Ellie and her junkie habits an' her drinkin', an me own drinkin. Us beatin' up on an ignorin' one another, and the boy, poor lad. Mr. Dumbledore looks after 'im now. Sent us both to jail an' we deserved it. Anyway, since they let me out I been trying to stick wi' the terms of me probation. They gave me visitation with me son for it. More visits the better I done. It taught me a lesson, yunno, havin' Sev taken away. Ye see, I want them at least to gi' me more time wi' me boy. I've quit drinkin' hard liquor, only beer an' stout for me. An' I never drink before lunch-time. I'm workin', now, steady, as well. I work on the docks, sometimes wi' the ships, in Liverpool. I'm a seafarin' man, by trade. I been back to sea a few times, I make good money, but I can't afford to leave Ellie for long. She can't look after herself. Ellie ain't taken it so well. She's been to rehab three or four times since they took our boy away and it never took. They took her reason for living when they took Sev away. She were never the mother of the year, but with Sev about she had to try and stay somewhat straight, too look after him. Anyway, we had one of our knock down drag-outs; I won't lie to ye, me wife an I are both violent people. I swore I'd quit hittin' when they took our Sev away, but sometimes I got ter act in self-defence. I may be stronger but she's handy wi' a hex and good wi' blunt objects, an I canna let the woman murder me. This last time, though, she stabbed me in the arm an' I had to go get stitches. I lost me temper. Before I went to hospital, I told her I was done wi' her, and if she could nae get off the smack and quit tryin' to half-murder me all the time then she could get the fuck out, or next time I'd kill her. I dinna mean it, an' when I came home I wasn't mad no more, but she was gone, just the same. I felt terrible, so I went lookin' for Ellie. I found her again in one of her usual flops, an' I told her not to come home until she could stay sober. I just had it. I cann live wi' the woman if she's forever gonna be thrown hexes at me an bein' violent. Well, I got lonely, without me wife or me son, so instead of goin' on a bender I shipped out for awahile, again. I wasn't home one night before me brother come to the house and told me that Ellie turned up and that she was in a real bad way. So I went and found her, and now I've brought here to yer. That's all I know. That fucker probation officer, he told me if I wanted her to quit I should kick her out and she'd come to her senses. It almost killer her, instead! I'm nae a bad man, doc, and I'm tryin ter do right, but I dunno what to do, anymore." Tobias admitted.
"You've done the right thing, bringing Mrs. Snape to us. We'll help her. She needs her own people to help her get better. Now, do you know how long has your wife been an addict and an alcoholic, Mr. Snape?" Dr. Lockheart asked
"I met her when she was 16. I was 21, and she was a junkie then. So that would be, let's see, we married when I was 22, and Sev, me son, he was just 14 two months ago, oh, 15 years at least. More than half her life."
Edgar Lockheart took off his glasses and sat down beside his patient's husband.
"Mr. Snape, I'm sorry, but if you have current visitation rights with your son, and if you wife has any family, I suggest you get them all together. I don't think she's going to survive."
Tobias surprised him by laughing.
"You don't know Ellie." He said.
***
While his grandparents were finding out what room Eileen was in, Severus flopped down in a chair beside his father.
He looked both ways, and then passed a brown paper bag to Tobias which contained a bottle of Hell's Horntail and a baggie of grass.
"From me own personal stash, Da. I'll bet you and Mum need it."
"Thanks, lad. Now you stay away from the hard stuff. Do like me. Beer and stout. And a little tea, now and then. I don't want you to end up like yer Mum." Tobias warned.
For a witch who wasn't supposed to last the night, Eileen was doing quite well when her parents and her son came to see her.
She was out of bed, sitting up in a chair, reading a book.
Her parents were shocked by how thin and haggard and ill she looked, but didn't say anything.
Her son was not so tactful.
"Jesus, Mum. You look like shit. What are you about, a one woman production of Naked Lunch?"
Eileen laughed.
"Something like that. I suppose it's time for me to end my affair with heroin. Before it ends me."
"I'd say so." Aphrodite piped in.
"Sev has to go back to school soon, Ditey. Why don't we wait and let him talk to Ellie, first?" Severus Sr. suggested.
Snape waited until after they were gone to make his offer.
"I'd say so. Look, the doctor says he doesn't want you to be alone long periods of time for the next few months. When Da's at his job, I'll come over at night an' stay with you." Severus volunteered.
Eileen brightened up, immediately. Some of the colour even came back into her face.
"Will the bastards let you?"
"They can't stop me, Mum. I'll do it whether they say so, or not."
"I'd like that, Sev. I know I was a rotten Mum, but I've missed you."
"Me too, Mum. I slipped Da some Horntail for you. Can't quit everything all at once, after all."
"You're a good boy, Sev."
***
"I'm telling you, Albus, I'll do it whether they say I can, or no. Me Mum needs me. If she sees me, she'll have a reason to try and stay clean and keep on living."
Dumbledore shook his head. Severus was so young, and had already been through so much. At heart he was a good boy, loyal and steadfast and strong.
And when he made up his mind, for good or for ill, there was no shifting him.
"Severus, you're too young to assume complete responsibility for your mother. By all means, you should go and spend time with her, it will be of great help to Eileen, but if she doesn't make it, you can't blame yourself." Dumbledore reminded him.
"She's me Mum. She's not the best Mum a kid ever had but she done the best she could with me. Now it's my turn. And I'm not that young. Me neighbour's daughter, when she turned 14 she was pregnant. She married the bloke and now she's 17 and she's got two kids and a job. I'll be a man next year, so I might as well get a jump on I, and act like one, now." Snape replied.
"Severus, you've been acting like a man since you were ten years old." Dumbledore ruefully replied.
He had to have a war with the Ministry, but Snape got permission to help care for his mother.
Which he would have done whether the Ministry said he could, or not.
***
It got around the school that Sev Snape's mother was in St. Mungo's drying out, and the usual suspects stopped making fun of him, for the time being.
That is, all except his arch-enemy, who sought him out at lunch.
"Pan's horns, Padfoot, give the kid a break. His Mum's sick." James suggested.
Sirius was James' friend, his best friend, and, unlike Snape he was a good bloke, a nice guy, even-tempered and well-liked. But there was something about old Snivellus that just brought out the worst in Sirius.
"Fuck that shit! You just want to look like a nice bloke for Lily Evans. Honestly, Prongs, I like Lily, she's a good mate, but I wouldn't want to follow Snivellus no matter who the girl was." Sirius retorted.
"Are they shagging? Really?" Peter broke in.
"C'mon, Wormtail. We're a bit young for shagging." James told him.
"Oi, speak for yourself, Prongs." Remus bragged.
"I was speaking for Wormtail." James answered.
They all had a laugh, hoping Sirius would be distracted, but by then, Padfoot was locked on his target.
"So, Snivellus, I hear your junkie mother's in St. Mungo's. Again." Sirius taunted.
"Sirius! How could you? What the fuck is your problem? Jimmy, can't you call him urf?" Lily squawked.
James shrugged his shoulders, helplessly, and put his hands in the air.
"Black, I'm sittin' 'ere, mindin me own business, doin' me fuckin' homework, summat you know nothin' about, and you 'ave to come over 'ere an make fun of me Mum. What are you, a fuckin' child?" Snape retorted, calmly.
Sirius wasn't sure what to say in reply to that.
"I see. I thought so. You see, Lily, Black's tiny little mind is so unbelievably fucking miniscule that it is too small to fathom that I may be light years head of him in terms of emotional maturity, and therefore his pathetic childish "your mama" remarks no longer 'ave any effect on me. Other than to make me realise what a naff punter and a dumb cunt he really is." Snape continued.
"For fuck's sake Sirius, his mother's dying. Leave the poor bastard alone." James Potter protested.
"What do you mean, dying? Snape is your Mum really…dying?" Sirius asked, horrified.
"Not if I can help it. Still, you never can tell." Snape replied, calmly.
"Christ, you're a cold blooded son of a bitch, then, aren't you?" James marvelled.
"What do you expect me to do, Potter? Cry in front of you and Black? Now if you two joy boys will excuse me, I have work to do. Why don't you lot jump on your broomsticks and go play with your balls."
Snape gathered up his books and left the Great Hall for the library.
"You lot, you're quite a piece of work! Sev's a decent bloke, I dunno why you can't fucking leave him alone! I got 'alf a mind to quit Quidditch an' forget I ever met the lot of you! Fucking Southerners!" Lily spat.
She gathered up her stuff and went after Snape.
"He doesn't care if his own mother dies." Sirius marvelled.
"He must. He just doesn't want to let on in front of us." James decided.
"I dunno. She almost beat him to death, once. If my Mum almost beat me to death, I'd be ambivalent about her, too." Remus piped in.
Snape was not, however, ambivalent about his mother's condition. As he'd promised, while Tobias was at work, on the graveyard shift his four days a week, Severus stayed home with his mother. She was still recovering from severe malnutrition, but more important she had been clean for two months, the longest period Eileen had gone without smack since she became an addict at 15.
Her son and her husband watched her around the clock, to make sure it stayed that way.
When he first started going over to the house, his mother spent much of her time in bed or in front of the telly, but lately she'd been getting back to work, mixing up potions and having customers in for readings, both Muggles and magical folk.
Tonight, she was in her lab, mixing potions.
"'Ello, Mum. I got your bottle of Horntail for you. I'll be in 'ere, doin' me homework." Severus announced.
"Don't you dare drink any of that Horntail, Severus! There's Newcastle Brown and Coke, and orange juice in the fridge if you want something to drink." Eileen called back.
It didn't take long for Snape to finish his homework, and when he was done he joined his mother in her lab, and helped her with her work.
She was still sick, though, and she got tired early and even though he didn't have to help her walk up the stairs to go to bed, Severus did so, anyway.
He waited up until four in the morning, when Tobias got home.
His father took him to the local, where they had a beer and a meal, and then Severus returned to Hogwarts, caught a few hours of sleep, and then got up for school.
Some nights Lily came with him, and they had dinner at her parents' house. Some nights Severus fell asleep in his books before Tobias even came home and Eileen had to look after him, putting his parchments and quills and books away.
A few times, on Friday nights he showed up at the house half-potted and smelling of weed and his mother would warn him about saying off the hard stuff, and put him to bed. Sometimes Severus came over when Tobias had a night off and the three of them would watch telly and have dinner and few beers together, and watch telly.
They would prove to be the best four months the Snape family ever had together, and Ellie, Toby and Sev were all upset to see them end.
Severus promised to come and see them at least once a week afterward, even though he wasn't allowed to go.
***
Lily Evans had reached the limits of human endurance insofar as staying awake and studying, so she began to pack in her quills and her parchments and books.
"That's it! I'm absolutely fucked. I'm going to bed?"
From the forbidden blue haze of cigarette smoke, Moony and Sev looked at her like she was mad.
They each had a swig of a little vial from Sev's pocket about six hours before and they were still flying beyond the outer limits of human endurance, chain smoking and chattering like fiends.
"Have a sip of this you'll be a new man I mean a new bird fuck that was funny man wasn't it Snape wasn't it?' Lupin said.
"What the fuck are you two on now?" Lily demanded
"Amphetamine sulphate and dextroamphetamine in a solution of caffeine distilled essence of werewolf fur and mandrake root in other words the speeeediest fucking speed that ever sped its me own invention and its selling like a fucking house afire have another fag Remus want some Lily?" Snape replied.
"No! I keep telling you, I stop at weed. Wot are you going to do to come down? Smack?" Lily demanded.
"No a few drops of tincture of opium in Hell's Horntail I make it meself it sells well too don't it Remus?" Snape replied.
"I'm his best fucking customer ha ha ha hahahahaha…"
As they both cackled hysterically and smoked and choked and had another tipple from the vial, Lily took her leave.
"Fucking nutters. They'll end up a couple of fucking junkies, both of 'em." She pronounced.
***
The day after the exams, Snape tried to come down easy on his home-made laudanum and a little grass, but he ended up crashing, viciously. His stomach, full of dope and booze and unsavoury magical ingredients revolted against him.
He spent quite a bit of time in the loo doing some full scale yawning until he was puking up green goo, and promised himself he would never, ever, ever go on a two week speed binge ever as long as he lived before crawling into bed and dying.
So it was with something akin to a combination of rage and heartbreak that he woke up when he was almost asleep when he heard Luke calling his name, demanding that he wake up.
Waking up was the last thing a groggy Snape felt like doing.
"Why? Is the fucking school on fire? If it isn't, I'll do you up a treat in the morning."
"Fuck you! How could you not be a virgin, you ugly prick?" Malfoy demanded.
Snape smiled to himself, and chuckled, evilly.
"The usual way, Luke. I fucked a couple of birds."
"Who? How much did you pay them?"
"You're funny, mate. Nobody you really know. I mean, when I was little, I seen me Mum and Da do it. They thought I was asleep in front of the telly, but I wasn't. And this girl in the neighbourhood, her Mum was a prozzie, and she seen her do it all the time. We was curious, so we done it. Coupla years ago." Snape explained.
"How can you have fucked someone when you were eleven?"
"Well, she reached her hand into me jeans and copped hold of me old fellow and it got hard and I fucked her. I dunno. How else?"
"Bullshit, Snape! When you're eleven, your dick's too small to fuck anyone with!"
Snape laughed.
"Maybe yours was, Luke. Mine was about five inches long."
"When you were eleven? Fuck you!" Malfoy retorted.
"Well it was! You know wot? The other birds I done was these bints in 5th year. They didn't know I was only a third year, on account of I'm tall, and I got hair on me balls. And now it's seven and a half inches long." Snape bragged.
"You lucky bastard. Well, I suppose the gods had to give you something in exchange for you being so fucking ugly. I'll catch up to you someday." Malfoy told him.
"Wot about you, Luke?"
"I fucked Arabella Baxter a couple of times."
"You an' everybody else in the school except Hagrid and Dumbledore. Still, she's a nice enough bint. She was nice enough to me." Snape replied.
Luke was about to disagree and say he thought Arabella was a real pig, but he and Snape were then rudely interrupted.
"Oi, Snape, I ain't queer or anything, but, can I see it?" Goyle asked, from across the room.
"Don't be fucking disgusting, you poof! Go back to sleep!" Malfoy chastised him.
Snape pulled up his covers and fell asleep, laughing.
***
Lily wasn't the girliest of girls. She was the tee shirt and jeans types, but she found herself looking through her clothes to find something alluring to wear when she went home with Sev on Friday to hang out with him while he looked after his Mum.
Puberty creeps up on some people, but it didn't creep up on Lily Evans. A few months after her 13th birthday, she and Sev went to a Who concert. Sev being Sev, he found a way to sneak backstage, blagging some roadie about them being wizards, too.
Lily had been a Who fan since she and Sev were just kids, but she really didn't think of any of them the way girls thought about men until she met Pete Townshend.
It was first lust at first sight.
He said something to her about Hogwarts never changing and made a joke about Albus Dumbledore that was really funny and got Sev laughing, but Lily scarcely heard it, because at that moment something gave way between her ears and between her legs, setting off an all-consuming inferno that burned every day of her life to cinders charred as anything that was ever coughed up out of Hell, ever since.
The boys she went to school with just didn't do it for her. They weren't smart enough, they weren't man enough, and they were all so much the same in their bland British public school similitude. There was nothing to them but a tired sort of underwear model similarity.
Pretty boys with empty heads.
She was far too proud and too much of a realist to be a groupie, so Lily did her best to try and keep her mind on her work when something far more ludicrous and embarrassing than developing a sudden and life-devouring urge to shag her favourite rock star befell her.
It wasn't as if Sev didn't wear disreputable rock tee shirts and canvas trainers every day of his life. Nor did he start wearing his flares any tighter; that would have been impossible. He was never any less a tough, a wiseass, and a son of a bitch, but one day, with his shirt and his jeans clinging to his body the right way, and the fag in his mouth hanging at the right angle, and the sun catching the studs on his leather vest in a certain light, Lily realised that her best mate was turning into quite a man.
And there was nothing pretty about him. Sev was barely 14, but he looked like a man looked, and he was smart enough to act like one and think like one as well.
It embarrassed her how badly she came to want him. Not to mention that what she'd done under the influence of that wickedly potent pot the day Eileen went to hospital positively horrified Lily. She tried to put the whole matter behind her, but when she found herself making for the Slytherin dungeons with a beater's bat to knock Sev's head in after she heard Arabella Baxter talking about how big his cock was in the women's bog, Lily realised she had to do something about her wholly inappropriate feelings.
She quietly learnt the contraceptive charm and got some contraceptive potion, just to be on the safe side, and hoped that if he had to let her down, her friend would let her down easy, and not be too snarky about it.
If he was, well, there was always the Beater's Bat.
***
Eileen could tell that Lily had big plans, so she went to bed early that night.
When she found out that Lily knew the spell and had drunk the potion, she quietly went off to bed, leaving Lily and Sev to watch telly.
Snape was vainly attempting to get up the courage to make a faintly indecent proposal to his best friend, also the aforementioned sex goddess of his etc and so on when Lily turned away from the telly and punched him in the arm, for no good reason.
"Owwww! Wot the fuck?"
Was she reading his thoughts?
"Wot about you and Arabella Baxter, you cunt!" Lily demanded.
"Wot's it to you?" Snape retorted.
"Wot about me?"
"Wot about you?"
"Look, Sev, I don't want to own you, cos I would never let a man own me. I'll do what I want. But I'd like to think I was in there, somewhere, yunno?
"Fuck me, Lily, I'd always put you first."
"Me too. I wish you were the first."
"Who was it? Not Potter. Or Black. I'll kill them!"
"Some bloke from Merseyside Magic. I thought he'd know what he was doing because he was older. I told him I was 16. He didn't. It all turned out wrong. He wasn't any good at all, and he tore me up a treat."
They both looked at one another, feeling stupid and embarrassed.
"I wouldn't do that to you, Lily. I know what I'm doing. It's in me blood, innit it? If I was him, I would 'ave made you light up like Hogwarts fookin' Christmas Tree in the Great Hall." Snape blurted.
As soon as he said it, he felt like getting Tobias' shotgun, putting the barrel in his mouth and pulling the trigger.
"I wish you would, Sev. I wasn't just all over you because of the pot, that day in the stall. I never had it so bad for anybody as I got it for you. Not even Pete, and God knows I'd crawl naked on me belly through mud and broken glass to get him to fuck me. Wait. That didn't come out right." Lily fumbled, desperately.
Snape fumbled desperately out of his tee shirt.
"It don't matter. I got the general idea. Let's go upstairs."
Snape left his tee shirt on the floor and crashing into one another and tripping over their own hasty feet he and Lily made their way upstairs and into Severus' old bedroom, where he closed, locked and warded his door.
He was about to unbuckle his belt, but Lily got there first.
"Let me do it. You don't know, Sev, how many times I've though about undoing your flies, and wot I was up to when I was thinkin' it." Lily panted.
With his last shred of coherent thought, Severus used his wand to turn his old turntable with the tinny speaker in it on, to at least make a pretence that his Mum wouldn't know or figure out what was going on.
***
You see, the problem was, that Eileen was right about her son.
There were two Sev Snapes.
The one who was good was very, very good.
And the one who was bad was Rosemary's Baby.
His foster parents, and his grandparents, and even the Evanses did all that was in their power to nurture the good Snape, and exorcise the bad.
They were optimistic, and didn't believe what Eileen had to say, that her son was a Dark Wizard, like his mother before him, that Sev was himself and his shadow brother all at the same time, and you couldn't destroy one at the expense of the other.
As it turned out, she was right, and they were wrong.
***
The summer before his fourth year, Severus Snape had his first Wizarding job.
He became Professor Slughorn's lab assistant.
For two months, Snape scoured and scourgified cauldrons, dried dragon's blood, cut mandrake root and a myriad of other tasks. The Potions Master and Dumbledore thought he was working for pin money, but Snape was secretly sending any and all money that Albus gave him from his monthly Ministry allotment home to his parents.
He was only briefly in Liverpool before he and his grandfather went to Severus Prince's "cottage" in the Carpathians to gather potion ingredients that would only be found in the Land Beyond the Forest.
Late at night, in his grandfather's labyrinthine magical archive beneath the black Transylvanian Earth, young Severus burned the candle deep into the mystical, the arcane and the occult that was the secret, ancient heart of the staid British Wizarding World.
The Prince family had been among the founding members of the Order of the Magus, around the time that the Romans invaded Great Britain. A witch or wizard's first position in the order was as an Acolyte, sponsored by a degree-bearing member.
The Acolyte made a general study of the Five Disciplines, Magick of the Earth, Sex Magick, Magick of the Arts, Magick of the Sciences, and Alchemy. When he or she had the required knowledge, understanding, and skill in the rudiments of the Five Disciplines, they could attain the rank of Inititate. This milestone was marked by the Initiate getting a magical tattoo from the Goblins. For the Initiate, the tattoo would represent general magical principles
The Initiate would then choose one of the Five Disciplines to study, based on their own aptitude and the counsel of their Sponsor. There were three degrees of Mastery in each Discipline. Each degree of Mastery in each discipline had its own set of magical tattoos which the Magus would receive. They also had the choice of pursuing an additional discipline after reaching the First Degree in any discipline.
Not many wizards made it further in the Order of the Magus than Inititiate, and out of hundreds of thousands, only thousands made it to the First Degree. Perhaps a few hundred witches and Wizards became Second Degree Master Magi, and the amount of Third Degree Magi in any discipline were under one hundred.
Most witches and wizards did not become Acolytes until their late teens, or Initiates until their twenties.
This, however, was not an acceptable goal for the son of Eileen Prince and the grandson of Severus and Aphrodite Prince. Severus Sr. was a Master Magus in the Third Degree of Alchemy, Sex Magick, and the Magick of the Earth. Aphrodite was a Master Magus in the Third Degree of Magick of the Earth and Magick of the Sciences.
Eileen Prince was a Master Magus in the Second Degree of both Sex and Alchemy, and was working on attaining the Third Degree in both.
Severus Snape became an Acolyte at 12, and that summer, became an Initiate at 14.
He went to the Goblins to sweat through his first tattoo.
Muttering the old incantation in old Elvish to himself, gritting his teeth in-between sips of Hell's Horntail.
In blood and pain seared through bone and brain a son of Albion this wizard shall remain. And from this Earth which gave me birth I draw strength not to scream. Wand in hand my soul my land. Until I feast in kingdom halls beneath gentle hills of rolling green.
With the Transylvanian goblin tattoo of the tree of life surrounded by runes fresh on good Sev's bicep, shadow Snape and his brother took their money from the summer's work and kitted themselves out in yobbo glory for the return to school.
With a hopeful heart that his grandson would not lose his way as his mother had, Severus Prince presented his grandson, with his first Alchemist's coat; the one presented to him before his third year at Hogwarts by his Sponsor, Albus Dumbledore.
Albus was one of only three living wizards and witches who was a Master Magus in the Third Degree of all the Five Disciplines.
It was Severus Snape's ambition to be the fourth.
The quarter-satyr Potions Master walked proudly with his Alchemy Initiate grandson, and made no attempt to hide his hoof and horns, when Severus Snape made quite an entrance onto platform 9 ¾ to catch the Hogwarts Express.
The Mauraders regarded Snape with curiosity as he said goodbye to his grandfather Prince.
"Did he get a lot taller?" Peter Pettigrew asked, nervously.
"So what if he done? Look at him in his flash snakeskin boots and that Death's Head buckle. Who does he think he is? He's copying you. His coat looks like yours, Moony." Sirius snorted.
"That's an Alchemy Initiate's coat. I'm an Initiate of Magick of the Sciences." Lupin ventured.
Sirius gave him an incredulous look.
"Come off it, mate! Don't tell me you believe in all that old timey bullshit mumbo jumbo? Fuck me!" Sirius exclaimed.
"What do you think Muggles think magic is? How can we be wizards and practise fucking magic if we don't believe in our own fucking mysticism?" Lupin argued.
"Don't pay any attention to him, Moony. He doesn't want any part of the Order of the Magus because his father wants him to. Sirius is strictly C of D. The best cure for a spiritual understanding of the cosmos as befitting a wizard is being brought up in British Druidism." James Potter wisecracked.
"A load of bollocks, all of it." Sirius confirmed
"I still like his coat. I should get one, then. Maybe I'll get Dumbledore to propose me to be an Acolyte. Where'd you get that coat, Snape?" James Potter called.
"From my grandfather. The Potions Master." Snape snapped.
"Not from his father. The Muggle drunk." Sirius sneered.
Snape favoured him with a chilly smile, as he lit up a fag in what Peter Pettigrew thought was a very Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry Man With No Name sort of way.
"Someday, Black, when this ridiculous farce of an education is behind us, I'm going to challenge you to a duel. And I'm going to kill you. I'll put me wand in me boot and kill you with me bare hands." Snape threatened.
"I'll see you the day after graduation, Snivellus. Call it a date." Sirius promised.
Snape hefted up his trunk and got onto the train.
"Gear." Was all he said.
Remus pushed on the end of the trunk, making it look like he was trying to trip Snape.
"Oi, Snape, 'ow about a drink an' a toke in the bog to celebrate our Initiation? I've got the smoke." He whispered.
"I've got the Horntail." Snape whispered back.
The Marauders piled onto the Hogwarts Express shortly after, with the exception of James Potter, who stuck around to wait for Lily Evans.
"Can I help you with your trunk, Lily?" James asked.
"No, I'll just use wingardium leviosa. Thanks, though." Lily replied.
"So, I'll see you at Quidditch practise. Alright?" he asked.
"Cool." Lily replied.
She boarded the Hogwarts Express and James was about to get on after her when he felt a tug on his robe.
He imagined the man in the flash suit with the ginger hair and the rather chilly green eyes was Lily's father; there was a strong resemblance.
"What's your name, lad?" he asked.
"James Potter."
"Well, James Potter, you seem like a nice, gently bred country lad from a good family. So let a villain give you a piece of advice about another villain. I've known Sev Snape since he was a baby. I know his Mum, and his Dad, I live on the same estate as they do, in the same street. He's only 14 years old, but that lad's a villain if there ever was one, a right nasty piece of work, God save 'im. He don't have much in the world, but 'e counts my Lily among what he do have. And if you try to take her from him, he'll kill you. Where young Sev comes from, a man will cut another man's bits and bobs off, stuff 'em in his gob and leave 'im to bleed or choke to death in the street for pullin' 'is bird. You'd best leave Lily alone. Awright?" Artie Evans advised.
James Potter tried to play it cool, but his face went fish-belly white.
"Yes sir." He said, and fairly ran onto the train.
Artie Evans took a few steps back, and found himself standing with Orion Black and Severus Prince.
They both looked about as happy as he did.
"…and the gods know I've got no quarrel with you, Severus. Not my old Potions Master at university! Congratulations on your namesake making Initiate so young. Regulus is an Acolyte, and he's a few years behind Sirius! I don't think Sirius will ever join the Order. To him, magic is just a great lot of nifty tricks that he can somehow do for whatever reason. He doesn't believe in anything. All he cares about is Quidditch. The only tradition he's interested in is this ridiculous feud." Orion Black was saying.
"That old feud's been dead since my grandfather's time, Orion. Why would our Severus and your Sirius want to dredge up old bad blood?" Severus Prince replied.
Artie Evans lit a cigarette.
"If yuh don't mind a suggestion from the likes of me, fink it's cos bad blood don't never stay quiet. It always bubbles up, one way or another. The Wops over in Italy, when they kill a man, they do for 'is 'ole family cos they know that. And it's bad blood between all five of those lads, old and new. It'll end badly, like as not." Artie ventured.
Orion Black gave him an odd look.
"Are you saying one of our children is going to kill another one of our children?" he asked.
"I dunno. But something's coming. And it ain't good. I can smell it." Artie replied.
Severus Prince and Orion Black had a better idea of what might have been coming, and they could not help but agree.
***
"What made you choose the tree and the runes?" Luke Malfoy asked, as he pretended not to admire his friend's tattoo.
"I dunno. It's wot came to me. When I make First Degree in Alchemy I'll get the ouroborous, the serpent devouring itself. For First Degree in Sex Magick, I'll get the Thor's Hammer, and the Celtic Cross when I make Second Degree in Alchemy Magus. If I ever get to the 3rd Degree in Sex Magick, I'm getting the Sign of the Dragon." Snape told him.
"Blimey, you got big plans." Goyle broke in.
"Of course, he does, you moron! He's a Prince. Not some fuckup Black, or a no-name like you. You know, Sev, you really should come with me and these two nimrods to the next Meeting. Lord Voldemort is a Master in the Third Degree of all the Five Disciplines." Luke encouraged.
Snape recoiled from the mere suggestion.
"Nothing fucking doing! I don't want nothing to do with no fucking nutter what is the wizard version of Hitler. You see how he ended up, and all his followers. You lot can subscribe to whatever goony religion you like. Purity of blood an' oll that shite. All I want out of life is Lily Evans, power, and money. I'm not likely to get any being some poofter's bum boy toady." Snape claimed.
"You've been spending too much time with Dumbledore. Lord Voldemort isn't suggesting we kill anybody. He's not another Hitler .He just thinks that Half-Bloods and Pure-Bloods should be separate from Mudbl-,I mean, Muggle-Borns. And how much money and power are you likely to have fooling out the road Dumbledore as mapped for you, replacing Slughorn teaching in this place? Just come to one meeting. He's asked us to bring you." Luke wheedled.
"He knows me? How?" Snape asked.
"He knows your family. He and your grandfather were old school chums." Luke told him.
Snape became curious. What would his grandfather want to do with this loony?
He decided to find out.
"My family, then? I suppose I'd best go, see wot it is 'e wants from us." He agreed.
***
Tom Marvolo Riddle, also known as Lord Voldemort, noticed a curious thing about the group of Hogwarts students from Slytherin House who had attended his latest clandestine meeting.
One of them, a tall, scrawny boy with very long black hair and a broad-bridged hawk's beak for a nose, dressed like a Muggle yobbo, hadn't paid any attention.
He had strutted in with a hard nut swagger and a permanent sneer on his lips, from which dangled a cigarette. He had his familiar with him, a rather large iguana on a leash, and smoked through the entire programme, with his feet up on the table.
"Are there any questions?" Voldemort asked, as he reached the end of his speech.
Nineteen faces regarded him with an expression of respect and awe, and one regaled him with a raised eyebrow and a look of contempt and disbelief.
"Yeah. Are you serving any real drinks, mate? I can't stand havin a full stomach stone cold sober. It fucks up me digestion. Cos if you're not gonna serve no fucking drinks, I'm going home." Called the black-haired wizard.
Voldemort smiled.
He suspected he'd found what he was looking for.
"You are all dismissed, except for my thirsty young friend."
When the room was empty, Voldemort removed the glamour from himself that created his fearsome appearance, and revealed a distinguished looking wizard in the prime of life, with exquisitely barbered black hair only greying slightly at the temples, and a neatly goatish Van Dyke beard.
"Nice disguise, mate. But I sawr right through it." The boy bragged.
He was positively stuffed into his flared Levis such that you could see he had his wand in one pocket and a switchback in the other, not to mention the weaponry he was packing in around the flies.
Considerable for a lad his age, but he was not Voldemort's type. The Dark Lord had a reference for good-looking young blonds of both genders who had an Elvish cast.
Besides, this was Eileen's son.
The young wizard probably had some sort of weapon tucked into his stacked-heel snakeskin engineer-style boots, and one of the skinny forearms he folded over the Who insignia on his chest had a goblin tattoo on it.
He had on a black canvas frock coat with leather and velvet trim and brass buttons hanging on the chair behind him. It was an Alchemy Initiate's coat, used but still in good condition, and the gods only knew what this clever lad had secreted in its many magical pockets.
The boy had potential.
"I wouldn't think of serving expensive spirits to that lot, but if you would be interested, young wizard, I'd like to buy you a drink." Tom Riddle offered.
It was hard for Tom to see Eileen in this lad; she had been beautiful in a willowy and delicate way, and her son, was rough-looking and raw-boned, with broad shoulders that his skinny chest had not yet grown into.
He would be quite a strong man, when he grew to manhood, with the constitution of an Ox. That was something the Muggle Scotsman had given him that would serve him better than his mother's delicate beauty.
Then, a crafty look passed through the young Slytherin's black eyes as he unfolded his long limbs and stood up, pulling his tee shirt down to his heavy leather belt with a death's head buckle.
They were Eileen's eyes. Very large and expressive, beautiful, even. The irises were a deep dark brown that looked almost black, with flecks of green and gold.
They spoke the volumes that the lad would never put into words.
Truly, this was Eileen's son.
"I ain't bent and I'm no joy boy, either." He replied in a thick Scouse accent.
"My dear boy, I could have had every mouth, arsehole, and pussy in this room if I wanted to. It's your mind I'm interested in. You may just have the makings of a fine man of business."
At the mention of money the boy smiled, sardonically, his dark eyes flashing sardonically over his beaky nose in a predatory, shark-like manner, revealing a mouthful of crookedy working-class teeth, already festooned with crowns.
"That's wot I've been waiting to hear about through all that bullshit and GBH on the ears you been layin' out at these meetings. I didn't see where there was any profit, or any point in all this neo-Nazi racialist propaganda, except maybe to excite the wallets of some of these empty-headed toffs. So, where does the lolly for all this come from, and, putting the fascist rhetoric aside, what is it you really want?" he replied.
That was quite a mouthful coming from a working-class Scouser.
Eileen's son. Severus' grandson. Dear Severus, they had been the best of friends for many years, until Dumbledore's meddling drove a wedge between them. And, most likely, drove Eileen away from him, into the arms of the Muggle Scotsman, and bad and ruin.
Her son was certainly the product of an unstable family, his Prince blood mixed with satyr, vela, and worst, Muggle Scotsman. It sent an unusual pang of pain into Lord Voldemort's heart, thinking about Eileen's fate, and musing on how the boy standing before him should, by rights, have been his son, a Prince in fact as well as by blood. Not an unfortunate waif raised in a degenerate home who ended up becoming, irony of ironies, Albus Dumbledore's ward.
A boy on the cusp of manhood, and perhaps, if that fool Dumbledore was in charge of him, disaster.
A boy who needed Tom Marvolo Riddle to take him under his wing.
To be the father he never had, but should have had.
"Be patient, Severus. I intend to reveal everything to you. In time. Now, I assume you're already an acolyte. Have you a mentor for when you become an Initiate?" Voldemort asked.
Snape rolled up his sleeve and showed the Dark Lord his tattoo.
If you looked closely, you could see the mark of the Transylvanian Goblins in the bark of the tree.
"Very impressive, Severus. I should have known that your grandfather would make sure you were following in the Prince family tradition. I was made an Initiate at your age, as well. I have the same tattoo. Most likely from the same sadistic, money-hungry goblins. Have you ever tasted good firewhiskey, Severus?" Tom Riddle asked
"No."
"Then you are in for quite a treat. My study is this way."
"Look, mate, not to be a cunt about it, but so you were an old mate of me grandfather? Why should you care?"
"That's a fair question, Severus. Your mother and I were once engaged to be married. She was an innocent, then, just a girl, really. She fell pregnant, due to my carelessness, and ran away from me to the Muggle world, where she aborted our child. And met your father, who is, like as not. A better man for her than I could have been. Still, I loved your mother, truly. She was the first, last and only woman who ever moved a man such as me to that sort of emotion. I've come to think of you, then, as the son I never had. I know you don't feel as though you fit into the clean, shiny little world Albus Dumbledore is grooming you for, and I imagine that you don't want to return to Spinner's End and go to work for your girl's father. There is another way. A better way. My way. I'd like to show it to you. Will you at least give me a chance to do so, if for no other aeson, than to pay you the debt I owe your mother and your grandfather?" Lord Voldemort explained.
Snape was surprised that this wizard could know so well the sorts of beasts of uncertainty that gnawed at his soul. If there was another way, some path that lay between Heaven and Hell, Sev was certainly interested in it.
"I think I'll have that drink." He agreed.
***
For the first time since he came to Hogwarts, Severus Snape's life really began to make sense.
After all, the last four years had been something of a high wire act.
If he'd never left Spinner's End, then he never would have known any better. Out of school by 15 if he ever went, then on the bottle, on the dole, on the docks, or on the fiddle with the likes of Tommy Boy Evans.
But then he came to Hogwarts, and the world of clean shirts and regular mornings that, try as he might, he never quite fit into.
It wasn't that he didn't love his father by law, and he was certainly grateful to Albus. But he didn't know if he could live in the world that the Hogwarts headmaster and his wife painted for him. It was bright and rosy with crisp white edges, like those on the white oxford shirts you put on for your regular mornings.
There was no room in it for his secrets. Albus and Minerva didn't know that he still smoked, let alone about his drinking, and his use of occasional amalgamations of drugs and potions. Medicines, really. Since he'd started mixing up home-made laudanum with tincture of opium and Hell's Horntail, his life and Remus Lupin's were a lot easier for the tipple they had every day at lunch-time. Just a glass.
And Albus certainly didn't know about Arabella Baxter, or the two fifth years, or Lily.
As Pete Townshend observed, Lily, oh Lily.
Tom Riddle, on the other hand, was a far more understanding mentor, with a common-sense view of the world. He considered his new protégé's drinking and recreational drug use a sign of youthful high spirits, and he was notoriously liberal when it came to sex.
Riddle was a man of business, and some of it was the kind of business that Severus had grown up amidst. Dope, prozzies, numbers, loans, what-have-you. People wanted these things, why not provide them? They were willing to pay, why not take the money? It was all going to a good cause, and so was the cash he siphoned off from the pureblood marks he ran his great neo-fascist Lord Voldemort scam on. They didn't need the money, but they needed the meaning being a "Death Eater" gave to their boring, silly, aristocratic lives.
A few legs were broken, a few shiners, a bloody nose or two. Bints were rumped and the odd junkie popped off. But junkies do have the tendency to OD, and nobody was really hurt, so where was the problem?
Better yet, there was a place in it for a lad with brains and ambition and talent, not to mention a good right hook and the potential to end up a man strong as an Ox. Snape had already started to brew the "special potions" his new mentor trafficked in, and he was making a lot of money for a lad his age.
Enough to send nice fat envelopes of pound notes and sacks of galleons home to Mum and Da, with much to spare in his Gringotts vault.
He wasn't the type for flash clothes, at least not yet. But when he was out of school and he was formally Tom's left hand wizard, he'd start kitting himself out in those smart Tommy Boy Evans suits. Buy a Triumph motorbike and an Aston-Martin. Big house in London, and one in Liverpool. In Woolton, or even Hoylake. Fully detached. Keep Lily in the style her father had accustomed her to. Nice house for his Mum and Dad.
Doctors.
Shrinks.
Rehab.
And when he walked down the street in his flash suit people would say, "There goes Severus Snape" with a mixture of awe and respect and fear like it meant something.
And it would.
It would mean a damn sight more that fucking about being a fucking teacher for dumb shit yobboes like the naff thick motherfuckers he went to school with.
It wasn't quite Spinner's End, and it wasn't quite Madame Puddifoot's, but it was a world that Snape was happy to live in, one where he knew a boy like him could become a prosperous man.
***
Lily became friends with Remus Lupin, and Jimmy Potter, but it was hard for her to learn to like Sirius Black, considering that he was Sev's worst enemy.
Through playing Quiddtich, though, she did get to know him, and she was puzzled. Other than his irrational hatred for Sev, Sirius was a really nice, easy-going bloke. He had a great sense of humour, and even though his taste in music was truly crap, she was easily able to befriend him.
Generally, Lily was welcome in the company of the Marauders.
Remus was her confidante, she could express to him her concerns about Sev getting involved with Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Snape assured her that hatred of Muggles and Muggle-Borns was all a load of bollocks to cover up Voldemort's real intentions, but Lily wasn't so sure that the Dark Wizard wasn't lying, and using Sev for his own purposes.
Jimmy never failed to make her laugh. He was as cheery and devil-may-care as Sev was dour and methodical. He wasn't troubled by her association with Severus Snape, and it was always his opinion that Snape was only in with Voldemort for the money; he was a little too smart to fall for all that daft Death Eater business.
There was still something off-putting about Peter; he was too much the toady for Lily to really trust him.
As for Sirius, he seemed convinced that Snape was demonic, and he was always trying to convince her to get away from him, and pushed her towards James.
For his part, Sev was bemused that Lily chose to associate with Remus and Jimmy, but he was equally as vehement that Sirius Black was a brainless dolt who couldn't be trusted; he was stupid and arrogant and easily influenced, Sev thought, and also wealthy and spoilt enough to be used to getting his own way.
They each had the same thing to say about the other.
"An arse'ole like that is capable of anything. You'd better stay away from the likes of him, if you know what's good for you."
Lily, however, didn't see any reason to stay away from Sirius, and she was unable to stay away from Sev. He was still her best friend, but she was head over heels in lust with him, and fairly sure she loved him, as well.
That was why, despite James jocular suggestions to the contrary, she worried about Sev's association with Lord Voldemort. Secretly, she vowed to try and pry Sev out of the Dark Lord's clutches, and promised herself she'd do it, no matter what she had to do.
It was war.
***
Normally, Chrimble and dress robes were two things that Severus Snape hated, but this year was different.
He had worked for it like a demon, and his hard work paid off.
On the night of the Winter Solstice, Snape was to be made a Magus of the First Degree in Alchemy. He had devoted most of his days and nights to study, to try and reach the milestone his mother had grandfather had both reached when they were 15.
Most Wizards didn't achieve First Degree status in their lifetimes, and Snape had about three weeks to go before he was 15, beating out his Mum and his Grandfather.
He had washed his hair, and got carefully dressed in the black and green robes his Magus Mentor had bought for him, and put his Alchemy Initiate's coat on over his robes.
With his heart in his mouth and sober as a judge, his forearm still burning with pain from his new Goblin tattoo, he walked into the darkened and empty meeting hall.
"This way, Severus. Follow the sound of my voice."
Snape followed the sound of his Sponsor's voice until he was standing right in front of the wizard.
"Hold out your arm, Severus. Lumos!"
Tom Riddle's wand burst into bright green light.
"Roll up your sleeve." He told his pupil.
Snape rolled up his sleeve.
Tom Riddle touched his naked wand to Snape's skin.
Severus felt the green splotch attach itself to his flesh, like a living thing, and watched it writhe and mutate into the Dark Mark.
It didn't look like any of the Dark Marks he'd ever seen, though. It was far more ornate, and the serpent had two death's heads.
"Congratulations, Sev. You've also become the youngest of my supporters to wear the Dark Mark. Your Mark bears two heads because you know the true nature of our endeavour. One head for you, and one for me."
Tom Riddle passed his wand over the Mark, and it took on the appearance of an elaborate Slytherin Crest.
"Only you can remove this glamour, and only do it when it is absolutely necessary, Severus. Pass your wand over the crest three times, then place the tip right between the serpent's eyes. Then say my name. My real name, not Lord Voldemort." Riddle instructed.
Severus tried the spell; it worked.
After a brief showing, the glamour returned.
Tom Riddle put one hand on the Dark Mark and the other on Snape's Ouroborous tattoo.
"Severus Tobias Snape, you are now a Master Magus of the First Degree in the Discipline of Alchemy, and a Death Eater of the First Degree." He intoned.
Snape finally smiled, and so did his mentor.
He embraced his protégé.
"Congratulations, Severus. I couldn't be prouder of you even if I was your father."
"Thank you, Tom. You've really been like a Dad to me."
The Dark Lord's icy blue eyes became as wet as those of his protégé.
"Severus, you may be Albus Dumbledore's son by law, and Tobias Snape's son by blood, but you are my son in spirit. You will be my heir." He pronounced.
"Your heir, Tom?"
"Yes, Severus. I will die, one day, and when I do, all that I have will be yours. I hereby swear an oath to that, an Unbreakable Vow."
Magic swirled around them as the oath bound the boy and the man together.
"I will teach you everything that I know, and show you the true way of the magical universe. Tonight is your first step along the path to enlightenment. Well done, my boy." Lord Voldemort finished.
Snape was filled with pride in both of his accomplishments.
And such it was that, three weeks or so shy of his 15th birthday, both good Snape and his shadow brother became a Man.
For good or for ill, he set his feet on the path of his adult destiny, and left his boyhood behind.