Summer was both a blessing and a curse for Severus Snape; he escaped from the constant taunting and bullying from the Marauders for a while, but he was expected to stay at home in the muggle world with his unbearable father. Normally it wasn't too bad, his mother tried to shield him as much as possible if his father had been drinking and if it was too bad he could escape to Lily's house. Mr and Mrs Evans were quite friendly and always welcomed him in their home. This summer however Lily was away visiting family and then the Evans' were going to be travelling to France for the remainder of the summer.
Resigning himself to a summer locked up with his books Severus had made plans to go to Diagon Alley as early as possible for his books for the next year so that he would have something new to read and study. Summer didn't go as he had planned however, he did spend time locked up with his books, but he also spent a lot of time out of the house; his father not wanting him in his sight when he was home.
Severus had taken to walking all over town when he was out of the house, rather than sticking to the park where he and Lily normally met and he was well known as the Snape boy. Taunting from some boys in one part of town had him taking stock of himself, yes he was tall, he was thin, he wasn't very masculine looking and he had long hair, but that didn't make him a girl. The fact that the boys had thought he was female had stuck with him though. The taunting hadn't been about him being a girl, but about his clothes and trying to be a tomboy.
Curious Severus had started to ponder how he could look more like the girl they thought he was. He had already come to master many different masks while at school. Being a half-blood in Slytherin he had to be prepared for anything and being able to adopt a guise to pander to the whims of the purebloods was something that he would get an outstanding on if it was tested for at OWLs.
Taking one of his mother's older dresses that no longer fit her wasn't hard, making it fit him was a little harder, but he could work a needle and thread with a bit of effort, so shortening the dress wasn't as hard as he had initially expected it to be. His legs were a completely different matter though, while not typically masculine his legs did have a fine layer of dark hairs, something that would surely be noticeable in a dress.
He wasn't sure that he wanted to get rid of them the muggle way, he had seen his father shave, and he really didn't want to take a blade to his legs, but he wasn't sure if there was a magical way that he could use without getting in trouble with the Ministry of Magic. In the end he turned to his first love, potions, to find the answer. He wasn't sure how effective it would be but he was going to brew a hair loss potion, often used in pranking, and apply it to his legs. Hopefully it would remove the hair just as well as it would if he ingested it, as that wasn't an option as he wanted to keep the long hair on his head.
The first time that Severus turned up in the dress the group of boys were less hostile towards him, even going as far as to talk to him rather than shouting at him. They even went as far as asking his name. Severus had panicked a bit that because he hadn't thought of a girls name, he knew in himself that he was still male despite what clothes he wore, but his skill with masks came through for him. Even as he was stumbling over his name his inner Slytherin was plotting.
"I'm Sever-" he had coughed buying himself a little time to think before continuing to speak, "Sorry, my name is Serena."
He didn't spend much time with the boys, but he did begin to spend more time developing Serena and learning how to be Serena. Severus wasn't sure what was behind his desire to dress as a girl, but he knew that he had begun to enjoy the positive attention he received as Serena. His Slytherin self was more interested as using Serena as a method of escaping if necessary, who would put Severus Snape together with being a girl, it would be a perfect disguise.
His mother had found it odd when he had asked for her old etiquette books as they were geared towards women her copies, but he had explained that he was intending to read them in order to help teach Lily wizarding etiquette, an excuse his mother believed to his relief. He hadn't wanted to share his new hobby with her, it was private something for him and him alone.
He had considered telling Lily when they went back to Hogwarts for their fifth year, but had decided to wait a while longer. He wanted to know who Serena really was before he introduced her to his best friend, he would figure out who he was as Serena and then he and Lily could have some fun.
