The platform was crowded with students all pushing and shoving each other as they swarmed out of the train. Severus could hear Dumbledore’s pet half-giant, Hagrid, calling the first years for the traditional trip across the lake. His shouts of “firs’ years over ‘ere!” were occasionally interrupted with a greeting for whichever poor souls had the displeasure of his acquaintance.
Slowly Severus managed to force his way out of the station and on to the Hogwarts road. Waiting for the students were a long line of horse drawn carriages. A trick of the crowd suddenly gave him a clear view of the horses harnessed to them – he had never seen anything like them in his life. He froze, causing those trying to push past him to swear loudly.
“Hey, Snivellus, forgotten something?” he heard James Potter shout from the crowd near him.
“Yeah!” He heard Sirius Black exclaim, “He’s forgotten to wash his hair!”
There were many sniggers and outright laughter but Severus was all but oblivious to it. He only had eyes for the strange horses. They were almost as black as the night behind them but he could clearly make out their dragonish features and enormous leathery black wings. Entranced Severus made his way over to the nearest animal. Its staring almost luminous white eyes turned towards him and it sniffed the air hopefully. Severus started back and was aware of cursing and shouts of “look where you’re going!” from those behind him. He didn’t care, for he had suddenly realised what these creatures were – Thestrals.
These near mythical beasts were considered extremely unlucky due to the fact that they could only be seen by those who had witnessed a death. And there was only one possibility…
Suddenly his ears were filled with his mother’s pleading voice, alternately begging and apologising. He could see her bloodied and bruised face in front of him…
He watched immobilised by terror as his father punched and kicked her, ignoring her desperate pleas. As his father’s fist made contact with the side of her head there was a sudden wet cracking sound and her pleading was cut off mid-word, leaving an almost horrified silence in its wake.
She seemed to fall in slow motion, when her head hit the flag stones it bounced and for some reason it turned and she seemed to be staring straight at him. The only sounds were his father’s heavy breathing, his own almost silent breaths and the thunder of his heart beating. He watched as his father prodded his mother’s body with his foot. He let out a grunt, but Severus could not tell if it was out of annoyance or disappointment. He then pulled out his wand and waved it over himself to remove the blood spattered all over his robes and face.
Severus wished he had something to hide behind as his father turned towards the corner he was crouched in.
“Stop cowering boy! And get over here!” he growled.
Severus got to his feet, despite shaking from head to foot, and against all his instincts telling him to flee walked over to stand beside his father.
“Let this be a lesson to you, boy. This is what happens to people who are weak, who let themselves be ruled by their emotions.” He said roughly, pointing to his wife’s blood-stained body.
Severus stared at his mother. Her hair, once beautifully soft and think, was now matted with blood, and one of her clear blue eyes was so bloodshot that the white was almost completely red. His father walked over to the door and exited, leaving his five year old son staring at his mother’s lifeless corpse.
Severus shivered and pulled his robes tighter around himself, the warm evening suddenly felt cold. He tore his eyes away from the Thestral and scanned the thinning crowd. He had never forgotten his father’s ‘lesson’, and even then he had not cried, not even when his mother’s body had been thrown on the funeral pyre.
He caught sight of Avery in the crowd, flanked as usual by the trollish forms of Crabbe and Goyle. They would tolerate him sharing a carriage with them and so he started to push and hex his way over, completely oblivious to the single tear that had left a track down his cheek.