Why He Hates Muggles

A/N: This story deals with the issue of child abuse – both physical
and sexual abuse. In order to remain with in the bounds of good taste,
I intend to show sex scenes only in the vaguest terms, and then only
when necessary to narrate the story. If these issues upset you, please
feel free to exit now.

As a writer of web-published fiction, my only rewards are the
satisfaction I get from creating, and the reviews I receive from you,
the reader. Please drop a line and let me know if you like my story.

All recognizable characters and trivia are the property of JK
Rowling. All others are exclusively my own.

Thanks,

Odd Doll

Why He Hates Muggles

Chapter 1

By Odd Doll

Monday, June 7, 1976

Severus breathed in the earthy, musty smell before lighting the
lamps. It was great to be home, he thought. Well, it was great to be
back in his cellar, anyway. He lit the lamps and took in the dusty
disarray of his workshop. Father must have been down here during the
school year, because Severus always tidied the room before he left it.
Two large tables lay across from each other against the walls. Each
held cauldrons and flasks, and jars of the potion ingredients that
consumed all of his spending money. The walls were lined with stone,
which was good. It kept the bugs and rodents to a minimum. A shelf of
magic books, including several of Dark Magic, lined one wall. His
‘lair’ his mother called it, half joking, half afraid of the things he
was doing. She never came down here, and Father rarely did any more. He
lost interest in experiments years ago, and only worked on things that
he actually needed. Last summer, Severus had taken the whole space as
his own.

He’d starting coming down here long ago, and found a refuge from the
firestorms that brewed upstairs when his father took out his rage
against his mother. When he grew tired of sitting in the dark, or
playing Goblin Wars with his little figures, he lit the lamps, took
down the books and read. Always a bright boy, he understood and
memorized most of what he read, and found a source of power in a world
where he was small, awkward, and ugly.

He had looked forward to this moment for weeks. No more Potter, no
more Black, and no more of that freak, Lupin. The scene on the lawn,
when Potter hung him upside down in front of everybody, flashed into
his mind and he burned with anger and shame. Lily had stood up for him,
though. That memory was one he liked to play over and over again --
Lily with her long hair and her pretty smile, putting that creep,
Potter, in his place. He wondered if she liked him, maybe a little, or
if she was just being nice. Reality hit him like a stun spell. Potter
had hung him upside down and trapped him that way as easily as hanging
laundry on a line. He had been so humiliated when it took the
intervention of a witch to get him down, that he lashed out at her, and
called her a mudblood.

A touch of unease fluttered in his stomach. His parents maintained a
cold war over the subject of mudbloods, half-bloods, and muggles. It
would have been a hostile war if Mum had a bit more backbone, but she
never contradicted her husband. Somehow, she made her opinions known in
subtle ways, while his father voiced his in openly derisive terms. Mum
would balk at his use of the word ‘mudblood’, and turn silent.
Conversation would cease until his father called her a softhearted fool
or an embarrassment to her good family name. Then he would change the
subject, content that he had the last word. As for Severus, he liked
the idea of keeping the bloodlines pure. However, Lily Evans was
talented, smart, pretty and kind – everything a witch should be. She
challenged his preconceptions and made him distinctly uncomfortable
every time he thought about. He tried not to.

He noticed a crusty, dried patch of some spilled liquid on one of
the tables, and took in the spider webs that filled every corner. He
crossed to the base of the stairs.

“Mum? Are you up there?” he called out.

She didn’t answer, so he went to look for her, and found her in the
parlor by the front windows, staring out at the road.

“Mum? Could you teach me some cleaning spells? It’s a mess down
there.” Just one of the advantages of having a family with a long
history of Dark Magic – someone in generations past had set up a
special cellar room for practicing magic in absolute secrecy. With a
separate entrance from the main cellar, hidden behind a panel in the
library, no one outside the Snape family knew it existed. Severus could
spend the entire summer down there, practicing his spells and potions,
and never get in trouble for being underage.

“Sev, come look,” she said in a hushed voice.

He walked up behind her and looked out the big picture window. Their
garden was large, with an expanse of tall grass, and woods on three
sides. Being wizards, they had no driveway, but an old cart road led
from the main muggle road, around the edge of the grass, and into the
woods behind the house. Walking up that road was a girl.

Severus frowned. “I’ll get rid of her,” he said and turned toward
the door. “You know how Dad is about muggles on the property.”

“Wait. She might be a witch. She got past the anti-muggle spells,
after all.”

Severus looked out again. “What is that she’s wearing? Is that
muggle clothing, or witch clothing?”

“It’s called a prairie dress. A lot of muggle girls wear them now,
but that doesn’t mean anything. All the witch girls wear muggle clothes
these days, too.”

“All right, so if she is a witch, what do I say?”

“You might try hello, and what’s your name,” his mother said with a
gleam in her eye.

“Mum,” he groaned.

“Just be nice. It’s hard to tell from here, but she looks rather
pretty.” She laughed at his discomfort. As he went to the door she
called out, “And Severus, if you like her, you can tell her she can
come back anytime your father’s not home.”

Severus answered by letting the screen door slam behind him. The
girl stopped at the sound and waited for his approach. His long strides
covered the expanse of grass and in seconds he was standing before the
most beautiful creature he had ever seen. He stood for a moment,
flummoxed. Her features were delicate and her skin was creamy white,
with rosy cheeks and full, red lips. Her long hair was like silk; corn
silk he thought, for it was a light shade of yellow blonde that faded
to white at the temples. She had the big, somber eyes of a small child,
and they were the color of the sky.

“Hello,” she said with a shy smile.

Severus cleared his throat. “Hello.”

“Is this your road? It isn’t marked, but I wasn’t sure if I was
trespassing or not.” She peered up at him, her smile still shy, as if
she pasted it there to hide a trace of fear.

She was American, he thought. He came to his senses and said, “Yes,
it is a private road, and my father doesn’t like strangers on our
property.”

She looked disappointed. “Oh. I’m sorry. Are there any other roads
or paths into the woods? I was trying to find a nice place to walk.”

Her voice was soft and feminine. Severus found himself feeling as
disappointed as she looked. “The woods belong to my family as well.”

She glanced at the house, and back toward the road. “Well, I suppose
I should go then.” She turned partway toward the muggle road and said
over her shoulder, “Nice meeting you.”

Severus was tongue-tied, awkward, and always shy around girls –
particularly pretty ones. For once, though, inspiration hit him.

“Wait,” he said. She turned back. “I suppose it would be all right
this once, if I went with you.”

Her smile faded and her eyes searched his face. He could see her
reluctance in the way her shoulders hunched forward and her arms
crossed around her chest. She cast an uneasy glance toward the road. He
tried to hide his hurt and disappointment by letting them harden into
anger.

“Never mind,” he said with a sneer. He turned on his heel and
started for the house.

“I’m sorry,” she called out after him. “It’s just…I’m not allowed to
be around boys.”

He stopped mid-stride and looked at her. “Why not?”

She blushed in embarrassment and looked at the ground. “My parents
are very strict.”

“Oh,” was all he could manage. He wavered between encouraging her
and just letting it go.

She seemed to make up her mind, looking up at him with a grin. “I
suppose it would be all right. This once.”

“Would you like to see the woods?” he asked, trying to remain
nonchalant despite the goofy smile on his face.

“Yes, please.”

They turned to the woods and fell into step together.

“Could you slow down a bit?” she asked. “You’re very tall.”

He felt himself blushing. “Sorry.” She was not petite, probably
5’6”, he thought, but he had grown so much in the last year, he forgot
that he was now over six feet, and moved with longer strides than most.

She looked up at the house as they walked by. “That’s a very unusual
house. Sort of gothic, like witches or wizards would live there.”

He glanced at her, but her expression gave him no clue as to what
she intended. She stared at the house with something that was almost
longing, he thought. Severus glanced up at the Snape family home. It
was not as old as the property. His great-grandfather rebuilt the house
in 1864, when a magical accident had set the previous building on fire.
The new building was a massive edifice of gray stone and weathered
shingles, with a deep porch on three sides and dormer windows. Since
its construction, the family fortunes had declined, thanks to his
spendthrift grandfather, and his half-witted great-grandfather. The
house needed repairs. Shingling the leaky roof would be the project for
the next weekend, his father had informed him. If Severus cold do magic
out in the open, he would probably be up there right now.

For all his faults, his father sacrificed his freedom to keep the
family estate in tact. By the time Grandfather died, the Snape family
was so indebted to Gringott’s Bank, it seemeevitevitable that the
property would be broken up and sold. But instead, his father took a
job for a potions manufacturer, the first Snape in centuries to be
gainfully employed. Still, they struggled. After the hefty payments to
Gringott’s, there was little left to live on. Mum’s garden kept them in
the special foods that cost so much in the muggle markets. Every item
was used and reused until it had no use left, from the vegetable scraps
that Mum put into the compost pile, to the worn, gray underwear that
caused him so much embarrassment at school. He’d grown so fast, they
could hardly keep him in clothes. At the moment he was wearing his
oldest black, button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to disguise
the fact that they were too short, and a pair of Father’s old pants
that Mum had cut down to fit his slim hips.

In time, Severus too would be called upon to do his part to keep
alive the House of Snape.

He looked at her ruffled, flowery dress, and realized it was
homemade. It made him wonder what kind of family she came from. “What’s
your name?” he asked her.

“Charity. Yours?”

“Severus.”

“Ses? Ts? That’s unusual.”

“Charity’s not that common, either.”

“Yes, but I’ve never heard of anyone named Severus.”

He searched for something to say that didn’t sound stupid in his
ears. “So, did your parents expect you to grow up to be generous and
giving?” He cringed inside. That sounded pretty stupid.

She laughed. “I was named for charity in the Christian sense, as in
faith, hope and charity. In that usage it means ‘love.’”

“Are your parents very religious?” he asked with a feeling of dread.
Most wizarding families were not bible thumpers. She couldn’t possibly
be a witch, he thought.

“Very,” she said. “My mother is a minister. We’re here to build a
new church and start a ministry.”

They stepped over the threshold of the forest, and into the dappled
shade of the trees. A slight breeze stirred the leaves overhead with a
sighing sound. She looked up with a smile on her face.

“If I had my own woods like this, I’d be here every day. We have a
national forest near where I live and I go there every chance I get. Do
you come here often?”

“I used to. It was great when I was little. I’d play Robin Hood and
Red Indians, and climb trees. There’s a big pool deeper in the woods,
with a little rapids. You can swim and fish there. Would you like to
see it?”

“Oh, yes. It sounds wonderful. Is it far?” She glanced at a thin
gold watch she wore. He noticed that her wrists were slim and delicate,
like the bones of her face.

“Not too far.”

“How old are you?” she asked.

“I’m fifteen. How old are you?”

“Fourteen. Do you go to school around here? If we stay, they might
let me go to the local schools. We might be in some of the same
classes.”

That settled it. She was a muggle. Severus felt more than a little
disappointed. Aside from being very pretty, she was nice and seemed
tolerant of his social ineptitude. But conversation with muggles could
only go so far and he did not know which was worse – a muggle or a
mudblood. He thought of Lily again, and decided to at least keep his
mouth shut. Severus berated himself. It wasn’t as if she were
interested in his friendship, anyway. Girls like Charity had more
interesting things to do with their time.

“I go to a boarding school. It’s a long way from here.”

“Oh. Do you like that? Being away from home?”

“In some ways it’s nice. I go to a really great school.”

“That’s good. What’s it called?”

“Hogwarts,” he said. He wasn’t breaking secrecy; the name would mean
nothing to a muggle. “What school do you go to?”

“Life Reformation Christian School.”

Then walked in awkward silence. Severus became acutely aware of his
every movement – the length of his strides, the way he held his arms
stiffly at his side. He glanced at her from time to time, but she was
absorbed with the sights and sounds of the woods.

A rustle overhead drew their attention. A bird with brilliant
plumage launched itself from an oak tree and disappeared into the woods.

“A pheasant,” he told her. “We get deer, too.”

“We get them, too. They go nuts trying to keep them out of the
vegetable gardens.”

“My mum does, too. Where do you live?”

“Oregon, where it rains all the time and there are lots of lovely
green trees, like these. How many acres do you have?”

“About a thousand,” he said, feeling a little pride at the size of
their estate.

“Wow. That’s incredible.”

“It’s hard to maintain these days.”

“I’ll bet.”

When they arrived at the pool, it drew a gasp of pleasure from her
lips. “This is so nice. I could look at it forever.”

The pool formed at a spot where a pile of exposed rocks dammed a
little stream. Above the rocks, the stream was wide and shallow. Water
ran over them in a small cascade, into a deeper pool below, and then
into a series of rapids. Trees hung down over the banks, and sunlight
sparkled on the sprays of water.

“The bottom pool has gravel on the bottom, and it’s about eight feet
deep. It’s really nice for swimming,” he told her. “The upper pool is
great for fishing.”

“Do you like to fish?”

“Um, not too much. My father does. I used come with him, sometimes.”

She sat on a rock, not taking her eyes off of the water. He sat
opposite, finding it hard to take his eyes off of her. She turned
suddenly and he blushed. Her smile told him that she caught him staring.

“Is it alright if I take off my shoes and wade?”

“Sure.”

“Do you want to join me?” she asked as she removed her sandals. Like
the rest of her, her feet and ankles were lovely, small and delicate.

“Not today.” He was content to watch.

Her skirt came to mid-calf, but she grasped the fabric and raised it
to her knees before stepping into the upper pool.

“It’s a bit muddy up here,” she said. She wiggled her toes, letting
the mud ooze between them. She giggled and splashed the water with her
foot.

“Yes. The silt collects up there behind the rocks.”

She walked around, letting her feet get muddy, and then rinsing them
by splashing her feet in the water and making a lot of spray. She was
not like the girls at school, he thought. It wasn’t just that she was
shy, either. The shy girls at school did not speak to him with her calm
frankness. And they would never splash in the pool with such joyous
abandon. There was a skittishness about her, though, like the small
creatures of the wood, who turn their round eyes toward you, watching
for the hint of threat. Mum would know, he thought. She saw things in
people that others missed.

“If you have a bathing suit, you could come back and swim some
time,” he said.

She looked up at him with delight. “I can come back?”