The midday drifted over a black river that wound between overgrown, rubbish-strewn banks, raising the stink. An immense chimney of the textile factory reared up, shadowy and ominous, emitting acrid smoke.

No sounds apart from the snide whispers of the water, no sign of life apart from a teen sitting in the tall sun-dried grass, with intense black eyes hypnotizing the other side of the river, where he'd see Evans' cottage if the walls of all the other, unimportant houses had disintegrated, as if made of cards. He'd like them to, with humans, mutts and other local scum, fused with barren land, gray sky, stink, dirt.

After the quarrel at the end of fifth year — that incident with the "mudblood", that slipped off his tongue and has been cursed a thousand times since — Lily didn't talk with him anymore, and if at Hogwarts it stayed remotely bearable, then in this shithole..

Severus dully glanced at the water, the fumes from which under the scorching sun could as well turn poisonous, then half-rised in attempt to see at least the roof of Lily's house, comfortless as a hobe.

Maybe he will even sleep here, what difference did it make if even at night brain-soluble swelter gritted the streets, and in the evenings pa came home after work and the bar, drunk and unable to keep his fists to himself?

The thought provoked a mirthless grin. No, he'll go back, he couldn't leave ma alone with this cattle. He's not that much of a selfish rabble, even if he's grown to find all the baseness in himself.

But it's not time yet. For now, he can sit here and, as Petunia might put it, "stalking like a creep" a little more. Although was it stalking if he didn't see anything? Nah, his conscience is clear — at least clearer than surroundings and himself, with dry sweat on his skin and jet strands hanging in limp wisps, sticking to the nape of his neck. How he looked now, and how in the world has he not yet become one with the salt crystal, he preferred not to think. There's no one he wants to impress left in this town anyways.