A magical love affair - Severus Snape x Petunia Evans

Chapter 13 - Glum life in Spinner's End!

Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Petunia walked, looking nervously around at the broken streets, bedraggled houses and raged gardens, in hurried steps beside Severus through the run-down industrial parts of Cokeworth. Although she had passed these streets in her distraught escape from Vernon some hours ago, she only now registered the despicable state of most houses, shops, and bowers. Despite the gleaming sun and blue sky, everything in Spinner's End seemed to be so glum, broken and beyond hope. Some kids in dirty, raddled hand-me-downs chased each other around the buildings or played football with a threadbare ball, making a racket and bullying each other.

Undoubtedly, they wanted to escape their fighting parents, drunken elder siblings or empty fridges. Although Petunia realized that her associations to home life in Spinner's End were born out of the common prejudices in Cokeworth, Severus' story and some local newspaper reports about the high rate of unemployment, alcohol addicts and people living in poverty in Spinner's End. Surely, Petunia exaggerated and not all people in Spinner's End were jobless, criminal addicts like Severus' bastard of a father. But she couldn't imagine that anyone with a decent job, income and family would ever want to live there because everything screamed decay, violence, and despair.

A shiver ran down her spine, as she thought about how fate could alter one's life. If her father didn't have his job in the law firm and her mother wasn't such a caring, over-bearing housewife who taught her daughters lady-like manners as well as societal approved values and kept her house and garden in a beautiful, clean and neat state, she might have grown up in this shadier part of Cokeworth as a miserable, impoverished and abused girl. She couldn't fathom what such a life could do to one's soul. But Petunia didn't want to focus on her glum thoughts because, behind such a run-down house's doors, she would regain a magical education. She was still in awe of Severus' offer and couldn't process that she would be able to help him brewing in a few minutes. Sure, Severus would do most of the work and only explain some easy steps to her, which she perhaps could realize with some luck and concentration. But she would act as an eager pupil and let Severus run the show. She had never dreamed of helping by the creation of a potion and even if it would only be a simple Pepper up or Pain Potion, she simmered with excitement, so that a huge smile graced her face.

She studied Severus form the corner of her icy blue eyes, noticed his slightly staggering from his Whiskey consumption and his sullen, disheveled appearance. Hell, he really looked like a poster child for the broody, sullen and self-conflicted teenaged boy from an abusive home life. But Petunia couldn't belittle him for his grumpy impression because she shared his pain. His rejection by his high-school crush, his grief for the murder of his beloved mum and his depression by his lonely, seemingly hope- and futureless life. She really wanted to give him a new purpose in life and make him believe in his abilities and chances.

She felt so relieved when he confessed to her that he hadn't joined this terroristic group of dark wizards and wasn't planning to join them despite their tempting promises of fame, wealth and knowledge, their extreme peer pressure and their threats of severe consequences for his possible resistance. She realized that he ran a huge risk to end up tortured, severely injured or dead for his defiance. Consequently, he put himself at an even greater risk for educating a mere Muggle in the basics of magical history, culture, and social conventions. She knew that he probably wanted to distract himself from his grief and show off the Magical world to someone who would be in awe of it like a child in a candy store. But his insistence to take this risk upon himself in these dark times really moved her deeply.

Besides that, he had agreed to let her visit his childhood home. A place, he must despise for all the horrible memories it held. Not only had he witnessed there how Tobias had beaten, bullied and controlled his beloved mum. He had also been subjected to this verbally and physically abuse himself and hadn't been allowed to talk about the Magical world. But his beloved, magical mum had in addition been beaten to death in the kitchen. Petunia shuddered, gazed with a pitiful expression on her walking companion and hoped that he would be able to educate her without breaking down. For Petunia couldn't imagine how hurtful it must be to cook and eat in the place, where one's mother had been brutally murdered by the hands of her own husband. Hell, she couldn't even imagine how difficult it must be to live in the house of this crime. Surely, in every corner, he must be haunted by violent, cruel memories and images. She really hoped, that their lessons would keep him distracted from his glum thoughts. Although she realized that he had to process his mum's death eventually and let himself grief. But Petunia also knew that he couldn't start a healthy grieving process until he had fully understood the consequences of his mum's murder.