September 1,1990
Snape sat on the edge of the small wooden chair beside dumbledore's desk, his eyes flitting nervously between the tall pacing figure before him and the bright blue sky just outside the tower window.
"I trust you know why I've summoned you Severus?"
Of course he knew, how could he not? He felt a sharp pang in his chest. Ten years. It would be ten years this halloween, yet not a day passed unaccompanied by moments of false hope, longing that it had all just been one catastrophic nightmare. Snape nodded tersely, and Dumbledore continued:
"Harry Potter will be arriving at Hogwarts tonight. As you very well know, the circumstances surrounding the school this year are far from ideal."
"And you still maintain the necessity of keeping the stone here of all places?" Snape interjected.
"It is the only place it will be safe. Now Severus, do I still have your word that you will do everything in your power to protect the boy?"
Snape gave another terse, somewhat reluctant nod.
"Good. I'll see you at the feast tonight," Dumbledore said matter-of-factly as Snape turned to leave, "Oh, and one more thing Severus, be careful of what you say around the boy. At this point, the less he knows the better. I'd like to put off his inevitable loss of innocence a bit longer if we can."
He arrived at the great hall early that night, and for the first time since he had taken his position at the school, he allowed himself to remember his first journey through those enormous oak front doors, exactly two decades prior. Lagging behind nervously with Lily as Mcgonagall led the trembling group of first years down the aisle toward the old and battered hat that rested on the stool. Watching her place the hat on her head, following shortly thereafter and doing the same, his immense disappointment, as they were forced to occupy feuding houses. Watching her sit beside James… He snapped himself out of it and sat at his seat at the front table as the other professors began to trickle in.
As he watched the teachers, and then the older students begin to enter the great hall, Snape's anxiety mounted. In a few moments, James's and Lily's son would walk through those doors. A million questions circulated through Snape's mind. What would the boy be like? Would he inherit his mother's kindness and compassion? Would he take on the arrogant and demeaning nature of his father? Somehow, Snape wasn't sure which he feared more. Having the last remaining piece of Lily reflect nothing of her deep, caring and empathetic ways? Or perhaps even worse, knowing that Snape would always hold a grudge against the boy, having him be the embodiment of his mother's personality, and then hating himself for his inability to forgive the boy for that which he could not control.
"Excuse me Severus," Hagrid bumped Snape's chair as he made his way to his place at the table, snapping him out of his thoughts, and granting the sudden realization that Hagrid's return meant the first years had finally arrived.
The great oak doors parted, and professor Mcgonagall entered the hall, trailed by a long line of scared looking first years. Snape apprehensively scanned the line of eleven year olds, not even fully sure who he was looking for. He had never seen the boy, and though he'd been told he resembled his father, he refused to believe it until he saw. His eyes moved through the crowd, and then he froze. Standing next to a tall redhaired boy, was a thin, bespectacled child with jet black hair that stuck up at the back. If Snape didn't know better, he'd have thought James Potter himself had walked in. A surge of emotions hit him all at once. Anger, shock, regret, he didn't know what to think, so he simply glared at that wretched hat on the stool as it opened at the brim, and began to sing. Throughout the song, Snape regained his composure, and then calmly watched as Hannah Abbott was sorted into Hufflepuff.
Mcgonagall made her way through the list, Millicent Bulstrode became the first addition to Snape's house of Slytherin. Terry Boot joined Ravenclaw, Hermione Granger to Gryffindor, on and on. He watched Lucius Malfoy's son, whom he had never really liked, take his place at the Slytherin table. Down the list Mcgonagall went, until finally, she reached Potter, and Harry stepped up to the stool. He took particularly long to sort, and Snape had a sudden panicked thought that Harry could end up in his house, under his supervision. The thought of having to deal with the boy even more so than his role as potions master already required terrified Snape. Finally, to his great relief, the hat shouted "Gryffindor!" and Harry joined the cheering table opposite Snape.
As Harry sat down, looking overwhelmed with the entire situation, he looked up at the teachers table, and made eye contact with Snape. Snape's stomach seemed to jump into his throat. For a moment, he truly believed that he was looking into the eyes of Lily Evans. Forcing himself to look away, he quickly struck up a conversation with Quirrell to distract himself. Dumbledore had said he had her eyes… But up until now he hadn't realized how much he missed them.
Shaken by the encounter, Snape was unable to focus on much of anything for the rest of the evening. He lead the Slytherins down to their common room, and left the prefects to discern matters of housing and rules, trusting that their instruction would be sufficient for the time being.
Snape sat at the table, dreading the next hour. First years from Gryffindor and Slytherin had their first potions lesson just after breakfast, and he sat apprehensively awaiting his first real encounter with the Potter boy. He watched him enter with the ginger haired boy who it turned out was named Ron, yet another addition to the extensive Weasley family. Harry sat down, talking earnestly with the others at the table, heads turning from all around whenever he spoke. Snape sneered. The boy was clearly relishing his fame, anyone with true humility would have made an effort to divert the attention. He caught himself. He was jumping to assumptions, maybe the boy just didn't know how to blend in, or didn't even realize that he was drawing such a crowd. Either way, though Snape knew it was wrong, he couldn't help but feel a certain contempt for the boy as he filed out of the great hall, laughing and smiling with a carefree air of giddiness about him.
The potions chamber had always held a comforting feeling for Snape. The soft bubble of a cauldron, the pungent smell of the magical plants and fungi mixing in the damp air, the constant feeling of security and power, knowing that he could accomplish almost anything with the contents of this single room. The students began to file in, and Snape took his place at the back of the room, calmly and coldly watching as the students split down the middle of the classroom, Gryffindors on the left, Slytherins on the right. How ignorant they were, not to see the damage this would cause, not to see the utter stupidity of the housing system.
He looked down at the class roster, and then up at the students, who immediately fell silent. "Lavender Brown," a small blonde girl sitting near the back shyly raised her hand. Snape looked back at the list. "Millicent Bulstrode."
Down the list he went, the Gryffindors timidly raising their hands, a few nervously voicing their presence, the Slytherins confidently answering Snape each time he reached one of their names, offering disdainful grins toward the left side of the room, seemingly asserting their superiority, eagerly met with glares by the Gryffindor side each time. How petty, Snape thought, quickly deciding he disliked the lot of them. How petty to think that a mediocre personality test at age eleven in anyway defined the boundaries of who these students can and cannot care for. They were all headed down the same road he'd traveled nearly two decades later. And it served them right, treating the decision of the hat as if it were law. Idiots, all of them.
He reached Potter's name on the list and paused. Barely audibly, he turned to face the boy. "Our new celebrity."
The boy stared back confidently, almost arrogantly, and Snape held his gaze, the cold black eyes meeting the bright green. Let's test his confidence, shall we?
"Tell me Potter, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
Bewildered, Harry stared back at him. Not only did he lack the faintest idea of the answer to this question, but he clearly hadn't comprehended the hidden meaning of Snape's words. Even the obnoxious brown haired girl with the large teeth next to him, whose hand shot up at every question he posed, seemed to have missed this. Snape tutted softly to himself.
He moved on with the lesson, adamant that this boy should be tested, if he couldn't be told what he was up against, Snape was determined at the very least to toughen him as much as he could, or at least that's what he told himself he was doing, perhaps it was really just a projection of his own anger toward James, Dumbledore, and himself. Nevertheless, he convinced himself that this was the necessary course of action, however flawed it may look to an onlooker.
As the lesson wore on, Snape noticed Harry's resolve beginning to dwindle. He should've known, this boy lacked the determination, he lacked the spark. Dumbledore had been wrong. He had said that this boy was the last hope, that this boy had the ability to save the world. He chuckled at the mere thought, as he watched the boy struggle to slice a snake fang in two. For the sake of remaining in Lucius Malfoy's good graces, he praised Draco's abilities, though anyone who had read the textbook could discern that his stewed horned slugs were extremely overcooked.
The bell rang, and the students packed up their things and left, the Gryffindors hurrying out of the room as quickly as possible, the Slytherins taking their time, laughing as the pudgy longbottom boy tripped over his robes on the way out. Snape watched as Harry stumbled out of the room as quickly as he could, looking defeated. For one fleeting, terrifying moment, Snape found himself looking forward to the next lesson, his next chance to test the boy, exact some sort of revenge for his childhood sufferings. He pushed the vile thought from his mind. He couldn't allow himself to relish in the pain of others, even those who had caused him so much, it was precisely the way all this had started in the first place, and he refused to allow it to happen again.