Chapter One

Chapter One

"Are you sure all of this is really necessary, Eileen?" Peter asked as he spied the dubiously large assortment of vials and decanters full of all sorts of concoctions scattered all over Eileen's worktable.

"I have to keep him safe, Peter, and this is the best way I know how to achieve that. You don't understand the darkness that's coming, but for my sister to make a point of writing to me, I... it's a worry."

"If it's so much of a worry, why can't you let the lad stay here at home, and then there wouldn't be any need for any of these lotions and potions. What child of eleven is going to remember what to take when, and how do you know they won't hurt him?"

"Peter, please, David's a bright boy, and he needs to go to Hogwarts not just to learn but because he'll be safe there. Professor Dumbledore has promised me he'll look out for David, and this is the surest way to make sure he'll be able to learn without anyone being able to tie him back to me. Oh, don't look at me like that, love. I went to school with Tom Riddle, and even though I was only a firstie and safe from his notice to a degree because my family are Purebloods, he was downright scary even then. Kathleen says he's gathering an army, and Mudbloods and Muggle lovers will be the first people he eradicates."

"Mudbloods and Muggle lovers? It all sounds like nonsense and silly words designed to scare you."

"You don't understand, love. It's all very real, unfortunately, and even though David is a half-blood, it will automatically draw attention and comment because Kathleen tells me that my brother Atticus has fallen in with Riddle's crowd. If he didn't look so much like Atticus, we might be able to just let him be, but the best way to hide him is in plain sight. I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't necessary to protect David from them. Professor Dumbledore has promised me that his identity will remain a secret. Please, you have to trust me that is the best way to do this. Spinner's End belongs to David anyway, or at least it will once he reaches his majority in the Wizarding world. If there was only one decent thing Tobias did in his life, it was leaving that derelict old terrace to David."

"I don't like one bit of this, Eileen. You're making him play a part, and it's not just something he can slough off when it all gets too much – it's seven years or more of his life you're talking about. No, no, you can't do it to him. I won't let you mould that loving boy into something he's not - something he'd never be willingly."

"Just for a year then, Peter, give me a year, and if he really doesn't like it or finds it too hard to remember, then we'll send him to France for his education."

"I need to think about it. It's... the whole thing is troubling me. Oh, I trust you that you think you're doing the right thing, but at what cost? What's it going to do to our son to have to play a part he doesn't have to play? It'll change him all right, and not for the better if you ask me."

~*~

Eileen, knowing full well that Peter needed time to wrap his mind around the idea of deliberately making David assume a role of a character and deliberately isolating himself from his classmates, rather than him remaining a child used to being part of a group of friends. It was a risky endeavour, but she honestly couldn't think of how else to protect him, other than denying him the chance and right to learn all about his magical heritage. But, if Kathleen's letter was to be believed, and Eileen had no doubt that the tone of it was right, then the family was in danger if Eileen couldn't protect both David and Peter from the malicious prejudice of the world she'd grown up in. Better to let the boy have access to the best teachers in a safe and protected castle, all the while simply accentuating his natural features.

Eileen remembered only too well the cold nature of her very august pure-blooded family. They made sure at every opportunity and gathering of the extended clan that family and the purity of the Prince line was paramount, and that anything that diluted or polluted that purity was to be excised like a canker. Eileen had been the family canker, disinherited and regarded as dead for marrying not only outside the circle of influence that the Princes thought they commanded, but to a useless little Muggle. Oh, she'd heard all the rhetoric and vitriol spewed in her direction, how she'd brought disgrace on the family and essentially rutted with an animal. All ties were severed though once it became plainly obvious that this wasn't a mere dalliance, when Eileen showed up at the Prince estates in Sussex obviously pregnant. Severus David Snape was born a scant six months later, his father celebrating by going out on a three-day bender, leaving Eileen and a colicky baby in the dank terrace in Spinner's End, with no money to feed the meter or herself.

The next six years followed a similar pattern, Tobias' drinking and violent tempers diluting any affection she might have once felt for him. As much as she tried to shield David from the coarse nature of his father, the more Toby decided that Eileen made an adequate target to take his frustrations out on. His anger was unfocused on many occasions. He made light of his son's stupid first name, even though Eileen more often than not called him by his middle name of David, and then alternately berated Eileen for not thinking Tobias was good enough as a name. Tobias, little knowing that David was a name given as a thank you to the young doctor who delivered her son, not some nancy boy Tobias thought Eileen had been fucking on the side.

Nothing was ever good enough, and it was in those brief moments when Tobias failed to come home for days on end, that Eileen foolishly hoped he'd found some other tart to occupy his time. When that day finally came, it was bittersweet. Spinner's End was a pit town, small and only really existing to service the families of the men who worked in the coal industry. There'd been a collapse in one of the shafts, and Tobias had been caught along with several other men when the shoring had collapsed. As much as Eileen felt for all the families affected, she couldn't help breathing a large sigh of relief that Tobias wouldn't be around to torment her or David any more. That sensation gave way rapidly after the pit owners had compensated the affected families. Eileen had no skills in the Muggle world and no true credentials in order to get a job. Her only course of action was to begin brewing again, and she hoped that in such a remote corner of the country, the Ministry of Magic wouldn't find out that she was plying her tinctures, potions and salves to Muggles.

~*~

Eileen had literally run into Peter Granger as she was coming out of the high street chemist in Harrogate. He'd apologised profusely, made a fuss of David and offered to buy them some afternoon tea to make up for not watching where he was going. Hungry and cold Eileen had accepted, and both she and David had made a friend in Peter Granger. Soon, Eileen made a point of calling in at Peter's hardware shop, a few doors down from the chemist, whenever she was in town. He was an educated man who talked about all sorts of different subjects and always made sure to include David in any conversation, and David blossomed from the shy scared child into a lad who questioned everything and liked nothing more than exploring all the nooks and odd tools in the shop. The turning point in their friendship had come unexpectedly when Eileen, taking orders from the pharmacist one rainy Saturday, forgot the time and both she and David missed the last train home. Peter had taken the pair of them in for the night, given Eileen and David his bed and slept downstairs in the shop.

After that weekend, where Peter made a point to take David out to play in the park close by to give Eileen some time to simply window shop, it came as no real surprise to either Peter or Eileen that their friendship changed, and when Peter proposed to Eileen, he did so also asking if he could adopt David as his own son.

That had been five years ago and Eileen and Peter had never had so many arguments as they'd had in the last few weeks since David had received his Hogwarts letter. They didn't look likely to end any time soon either.

~*~

David had always looked forward to his weekends and holidays being a chance for him to roam around town and his friends' homes either all together in a pack or with Jane. The thought of having to prepare for a new school year far away from his comfortable life was something that was both exciting and frightening. It was the last few idyllic weeks before he'd be heading down to London and into Diagon Alley to get his required supplies for the coming school year. It was somewhere his mum had never really talked about, but since the letter had arrived by owl, his mum seemed almost more excited about David going away to her old school. David only hoped he'd have as much fun as his mum seemed to remember, and make friends as easily as he did here at home.

Things seemed only strained at home, with his mum and dad shooting odd looks at him and each other all the time, or so it seemed. No one would tell him what was going on, but David and his mum were setting off early in the morning to visit his old home in Spinner's End. She'd told him it would be an adventure, but sitting on the old table wearing his play clothes rather than the usual good clothes he wore for visiting, David was growing increasingly bored watching his mum pull books off the ratty old shelves. As far as David was concerned, this wasn't a treat but punishment for something he couldn't name. Kicking his feet back and forth scraping at the threadbare carpet with increasing impatience and frustration, David voiced his boredom in the Yorkie slang he knew his mother hated.

"Ah want ta nip on 'ooam, mam, ah'm stalled."

"I don't like it when you resort to that common rubbish. You sound like you're gargling marbles, and if you sound thick people will treat you that way."

David ducked his head at his mum's sharp words and stopped kicking his legs. Eileen sighed and put down the books in her hands and walked over to where David was sitting still. Pushing his messy dark brown hair back off his face, Eileen cradled his cheek and urged David to look up at her.

"I know you're bored, love, but I need to find these books. After all, you'll need some of them at school, and they're expensive to buy new. Second hand will have to do for now."

Sensing from the dark look on David's face, that no amount of cajoling was going to work if the books looked and smelt old, she wandered off upstairs to find her old school trunk. A little flick here, a wave of the wand there and it would look almost new.

Once Eileen had gone up the stairs, David hopped off the low table and decided to have a look around himself. He was glad he didn't live here anymore. It smelt, was dark and dreary, and everything looked like it was going to fall apart, but the bookshelves were crammed with titles, some he could read and others that looked like they were written in other languages. Pulling one off at random, he settled into the old sofa and opened a page at random to read about 'Polyjuice Potion, The Draught of the Living Death, Amortentia and Wolfsbane.' All of them had illustrations, some of plants, seeds and the oddest looking half human shapes, called mandrake. The only Mandrake David knew was the magician in the old comics his dad liked to read on the sly. It all looked like nonsense, and David's logical mind had a hard time comprehending just why he was going so far away to a strange place to learn how to be a wizard, when it all looked like nothing more than messing around – as his dad put it. But, he supposed, it must be important if his mum was making such a fuss about getting it all ready for him, so he'd fit in he guessed.

Dropping the book next to him on the old sofa, David let his head fall back and fell asleep quickly, the thought of all the weird subjects he'd be learning in order to be a proper wizard tumbling through his mind.

Having lost track of the time as she looked through all the old memories in her school trunk, Eileen stopped at the top of the narrow stairs and looked down on David, fast asleep on the sofa hugging her old copy of Moste Potent Potions. This brought a wry smile to her face as she came down the stairs and sat opposite David simply content to watch him sleeping peacefully. It had, for him, been a very long and boring day, but then Eileen had dithered wondering if Peter was right, and that it would be better to allow David to travel to Hogwarts without all the subterfuge she'd organised for him. Of course, it might still all come to naught if David rebelled against the idea all together. Oh, well, she'd cross that bridge when she came to it. Standing to wake David gently, the old mantle clock chimed five o'clock, and David shifted restlessly, allowing Eileen to shake him gently and wake him so that they could catch the train home in time for supper.

~*~

The next few weeks were a flurry of activity in the Granger household. There were robes to modify from Eileen's more feminine styles, books to rehabilitate and lessons to be learned. David was at times excited to be learning something new, particularly as his mother had only ever let him watch her brewing previously, but some of it was all a mystery. Oh, they'd all had a long conversation one evening after supper. David had been allowed to stay up as a rare treat, but the strained words between his parents wasn't worth it he decided after his mum had outlined her plan for him. He couldn't understand just why he had to pretend to be someone he wasn't - and yet he was in a way. His dad kept trying to get David to say he wasn't going to follow through with the idea of his hair being grown magically and for him to assume his old name. It was all going to have to be a secret too, and it seemed to David that his mum's idea that secrets were all right if the end justified the means - whatever that meant was simply so he'd comply with her wishes. Neither his mum or dad seemed too forthcoming on just why he had to pretend to be someone else.

It was all very confusing, but David had agreed that it could be like acting in a play - just a very long one. After reassurances from his dad that he was still, and would always be, his son no matter what happened, Peter had eventually agreed that it should be David's decision about what happened next. To this end, Eileen and David went back to Spinner's End for several consecutive days so that David could learn to play his role in relative anonymity.

~*~

Author's Note: This was written for Sunnythirty3 for the recent 2013 SSHG Exchange, but could not be completed in time to post. The first part is complete and the second in the process of being written. This is GENFIC, so if you're looking for hawt sexxors, then this isn't the story for you. There is some swearing, along with the judicious use and misuse of canon.

Many thanks to the fabulous team of Scattered Logic and Magically25 who have helped me get the story to the stage it is at currently. Without their input, I doubt this would be half as good. I am truly very, very lucky to have had their continuing help. Any remaining mistakes (yes, my comma fetish) are mine alone.