The boy and the brush regarded one another, the boy wary, the brush trembling with unconcealed anticipation. They had been facing off in this manner for the past ten minutes, since Mum had torn the bathroom door open, tossed both boy and brush inside, and made her hasty escape. Having tested the worn, brass handle several times to no avail and even pounded out his frustrations on the scrubbed wood of the door, the boy had deducted that he was locked in, and the brush was waiting.

A wiry bit of bristle nudged his shoulder.

“Don’t want to,” pleaded the child. He batted at the thing with his small hands, and it nudged insistently at his shoulder in return. “Don’t want to!” he repeated, his greasy head swinging furiously in desperation. “Don’t want to! Leave me alone!”

Abandoning its pursuit of his shoulder, the brush began to peck at his ribcage. A flush of red spotted his sallow cheeks; the boy could feel his face warming at the tell-tale prickle of tears in his dark eyes. Sod the brush and the stupid bath - he was not going to cry. He was five now, after all. Five was much too big to be carrying on like a baby, sputtering and snivelling the crocodile tears that Father never could seem to tolerate.

“Ow! S-stop it!” he spat, backing into the sink. “Stop i-it! STOP! LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU STUPID - STUPID... T-THING! LEAVE ME AL - Ow!” His stumbling retreat had not gone unnoticed by the brush, which had swung round to smack him firmly on the seat of his grey school shorts. “THAT REALLY HURTS!”

The brush continued its merciless assault on his backside unheeded, until, inexplicably, it stopped. He felt the tips of his too-small brown shoes scrape against the floor as his body was flung back, fully clothed, into the lukewarm water of the bath.

She was beside him in a blur of black dress and pale arms, her wand twisting in wild arches as she spelled a healthy dollop of soap onto the brush that had been after his blood just moment before.

“What’s all this fuss for, then?” Mum demanded. Her hands shot to his sides to lift the sopping white shirt and too-big waistcoat from his skinny frame. “What’s got into you today, Severus? Your father isn’t going to be very pleased when he hears about this!”

At the mention of his father, the boy called Severus found that he could not fight his tears any longer. They pooled in his depthless, black eyes, trailed down his cheeks in rivets and dripped from the tip of his crooked nose, giving it the appearance of a leaky tap.

“Well?” She rapped his head expertly with her wand, pulling him from the tub with one arm and rummaging for a dingy bath towel with the other. “Don’t you start crying now. It only makes you look more like your father.” He sniffed defiantly at her, his eyes glittering dangerously as she she began to scrub his skin red-raw with the rough cloth.

Over the course of five, miserable years with Mum and Father, Severus had managed to convince himself that he was really a dragon hidden in a little boy's body, biding his time until the day he would turn back into his true self, set the house on fire, roast his parents to a crisp, and fly away forever. There was all the evidence to prove it in his mind. He had the flaming temper, the body that never seemed quite proportional to his greasy head , the large nose (a snout, he was adamant), and claw-like fingers that were good for clinging to door frames or furniture when Father was in his worst moods. He curled his thin lips into a lopsided sneer that he imagined a dragon might make just before releasing a great, fiery breath.

“And don’t you go making faces at me either, boy. I’m your mother, and if I say you’re going to have a bath, then you’re to take the bloody bath. Do you understand?”

He shrugged, uninterested in anything but the image of Mum enveloped in flame. Would she bake like the birthday cakes she sometimes made for Father, or turn black and melt like a stick of butter?

“I said, ‘do you understand’?”

Severus opened his mouth, fully expecting the spectacular jet of bluish flame that he had been drawing up in his head for months, and was crushed to find Mum standing before him, as alive and under-cooked as ever as he hissed at her. She regarded him as one might a botched potion, all raised eyebrows and pursed lips. Severus hissed again hopefully, but to no avail. Not even a whisp of smoke.

“Come on, then,” she said at last, her arm snaking its way round his thin shoulders. “None of your silly noises. I’ll make you some cheesy beans on toast before your father comes back, but you’ve got to promise to behave yourself after that. No more shouting, or I’ll let him deal with you.”

He perked up, his sober face cracking into a tentative smile, as though it was unused to the expression. Did dragons eat cheesy beans on toast? Following his mother out of the bathroom, Severus found that he hardly cared. His stomach growled appreciatively, and it was with a spring to his step that he made his way to the kitchen.