Chapter Text
The shop smelled of damp wool and dying dreams.
Severus Snape stood stiffly beneath the flickering gas lamp of an ancient Muggle tailor's shop, tugging the sleeve of a secondhand coat around his thin wrist. It didn’t fit. Nothing did anymore ,not his too-long school robes, not the house he had lived in with his mother, and certainly not the world.
The bell above the door jingled. He tensed.
He didn’t look up.
“Ah! What exquisite melancholy!” came a voice like champagne poured over daggers. “You, my boy—your presence is like a poem written in shadows.”
Severus turned his head sharply. The man who entered was well-dressed in a pinstripe suit that would’ve looked laughable on anyone else, but this stranger wore it with an outrageous sort of dignity. His slicked black hair curled like ink under his top hat, and his mustache curled with just as much drama.
Onyx eyes met onyx eyes.
The man froze, then stepped forward as if drawn by gravity itself.
“You must be a cousin!” he declared.
“What?” Severus rasped. His voice cracked from disuse. He hadn’t spoken much since his mother’s funeral. He hadn’t cried either—not really. Not when the Marauders had turned him upside down in front of the school, not when Lily had turned her back. Crying had felt too human.
“My name is Gomez Addams,” the man said with a bow so theatrical it bordered on absurd. “And you—clearly—are one of us.”
Severus stared, disbelief flickering into annoyance, then settling into a tired sort of disgust.
“Get away from me.”
Gomez, to his credit, did not flinch.
“You wear sorrow like a fine suit,” Gomez said quietly, removing his hat. “It fits you well, but not forever. Tell me—what is your name, shadow-eyed boy?”
Severus swallowed.
“Snape. Severus Snape.”
Gomez tilted his head, as if tasting the syllables on his tongue. “Severus... Latin. Grave. Wounds that will not heal. Beautiful.”
Severus hated how his throat tightened at that.
“I don’t want company.”
“Neither did I,” Gomez said, almost sadly. “Until Morticia offered me her hand in a graveyard. You remind me of her, you know. The eyes, the pain, the passion beneath the ashes.”
Severus turned away, hoping the man would disappear.
“I lost my mother last week,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “She was all I had. I don’t want your pity.”
Gomez stepped forward, slowly, like approaching a feral cat.
“Not pity, Severus. Kinship. We, Addamses, collect the broken and the strange—not to fix them, but to honor them. Come meet my wife. My children. Our house has room for sorrow... and vengeance. And love, should you ever want it.”
Severus didn’t speak. He simply looked down at the coat in his hands.
It still didn’t fit.
But maybe—just maybe—this madness might.
They walked through the fog together, the boy a reluctant shadow beside the man who practically glided over the cobblestones. Gomez talked the entire time, of course, telling strange and hilarious stories about his daughter’s scorpion collection and the time Morticia turned a realtor to stone with a glare.
Severus stayed silent. He hadn’t agreed to anything, not really. He was only going along to see what kind of lunatic thought it normal to dress like a walking funeral procession and recite poetry to strangers.
Still—
When they reached the car, Severus stopped dead.
“That is not a car.”
“Ah, you approve!” Gomez beamed. The vehicle was a hearse. A beautiful, ominous one with a gleaming black chassis and silver spikes curling from the hubcaps like thorns. “Meet Caliban. Isn’t she glorious?”
Severus said nothing.
The drive out of London was long. Trees grew twisted and heavy the farther they traveled. Fog pressed against the windows like curious ghosts. When the gates to the Addams estate finally rose out of the mist, Severus felt a chill run down his spine.
The house loomed, dark and baroque, with gables like wings and ivy clawing up its face. Lights flickered in the high windows. Somewhere inside, something howled.
He stared.
“Welcome home,” Gomez said softly.
Morticia Addams was a vision in obsidian silk.
She descended the grand staircase like a shadow come to life, graceful and lethal. Severus had never seen a woman so terrifyingly beautiful. Her eyes, dark as ink and twice as deep, fixed on him like he was a curious spellbook.
“My dear,” she said, voice low and elegant, “you brought me a raven hatchling.”
“He reminds me of you,” Gomez replied, eyes full of the sort of love Severus had never seen between two people.
Morticia stepped toward Severus and knelt so they were eye level.
“You are welcome here, child. If you wish to stay, you will not be questioned. You will be fed, clothed, and left to your sorrows until you wish otherwise.”
He could only nod.
Wednesday appeared behind her mother like a phantom. She was small, pale, and curious.
“You look like a corpse,” she said matter-of-factly. “That’s good. We like corpses.”
Pugsley waved a sword from the banister. “Do you like explosions?”
Severus blinked.
“I think he likes books,” Morticia said, rising. “Come. Let us show you the library. Then you may choose a room—perhaps the east wing. The bats are quieter there.”
Gomez clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Yes! A room with damp stone and mood lighting. You’ll love it.”
Severus said nothing. But his heart, long numb, gave a small twitch.
It wasn’t home.
But it wasn’t Spinner’s End either.
And that was enough.
For now.