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@asphodelroot

Early January, 1984. Spinner’s End.

The air was damp with the January rain, pouring over the streets of Cokeworth in relentless sheets. The windows of the old house were shut and sealed, the four walls wrapped in wards and heating spells. Brick and mortar didn’t hold magic the way old stone or pine wood did, and so the cold seeped through the cracks as it pleased, slow and unbothered.

When Severus claimed this house after his father’s passing, he’d done so with a bitter heart. He resented needing anything from his father, in life or in death, but by then he was tired of the bare room above the apothecary and had grown wise to the need for distance, for a space beyond the prying eyes of his Master. Thus it came to be that only three years after his dignified march out of Spinner’s End, bursting with pride and purpose, Severus found himself slipping back into his old home, silent as shame, even as the only witness to this humiliation was himself.

And now Lily, too. Who once was witness to all that Severus is and was and could be, thus it seemed fitting that she’d reclaim that role upon re-entering his life.

He set the pot of lentil soup upon the wooden coffee table, along the plate of cut bread, and poured a bowl for himself and another for Lily. They’d spent all morning and afternoon in the library beneath the house, pouring over books and spells as the row of cauldrons sizzled and rolled over a low fire. The scent of hellebore and rosemary drifted up to the living room. The fire crackled on in the quiet room.

He sat on the couch beside her and brought his knees up to his chest. He shook pepper onto his bowl and then lifted the shaker to his friend. ‘ Pepper? Or salt? ’