Severus Snape, the greasy-haired teenager
The
room was dark, and almost bare. The furniture consisted of a rickety
wooden bed, a rough wooden chair, and a black trunk, which was
half-filled with clothes, books, scales, and an odd assortment of
other items. The rest of what probably belonged in the trunk was
randomly strewn all over the floor. The only living things in the
room were flies, and a few spiders. Outside the window it was dark;
nothing moved except a few old trees creaking with the wind. From
downstairs came the sounds of shouting—a man with a rough roar
yelling at a woman with a quiet, pleading voice, and young man who
seemed to be protesting.
Suddenly the door crashed open, and a
teenager with a hooked nose and oily black hair stomped in, slammed
the door behind him and threw himself onto the battered bed without
even bothering to turn on a light. Out of the pocket of his shabby
black robes he pulled out a long, lethal-looking black stick. He
pointed it at a blank bit of wall, in front of which a fly was
buzzing. With a bang, a jet of green light issued from the stick and
blasted the fly out of the air. The greasy-haired teenager continued
to do this, pausing every few seconds to search for his next victim.
He poured all of his hatred, fear, and anger into blasting those
flies, as if it were their fault that he loathed living. A tear was
forming in his eye, just one tear that told it all—how he wished
for someone in the world to listen to him. For, if given the chance
to prove himself, it would soon become apparent how extraordinary he
really was. But no one wanted anything to do with Severus Snape, the
weird kid who always had his greasy nose in a book, and who never
talked to anybody except to his teachers. He was uncool; anyone who
wrote one and a half pages more on the complicated essay that
Professor Slughorn had set them could not be normal. And as Severus
blasted flies from the ceiling, he brooded on painful facts like
these that his life was comprised of.