Ollivanders was a wand shop widely acknowledged to be the best in the entire Great Britain. Anybody who had to go through the wand-selecting process knew of Garrick Ollivander – the owner of the shop, and sometimes, even got to meet his darling granddaughter Azalea Ollivander.
Though shy at first, Azalea Ollivander was a girl quick to befriend. She was not particularly frisky nor talkative in any way, no, but she was a smart girl who simply took pleasure in passing on knowledge to those who showed the slightest interest, not that anyone minded. After all, she was just simply adorable, and a rather good company to have at that while her grandfather dug through his tremendous stash of wands.
But there was a catch. The girl's eyes, which bore a striking resemblance to her grandfather's pale silver, were exceptionally sharp. Even the slightest hint of ill intention would send her off running in the other direction. It was one of the characteristics Garrick Ollivander enjoyed bragging to people about his granddaughter; however one could not help but wonder whether her intuition was, in reality, reading others' minds.
"Thank you for coming with me today, Grandpa."
"Oh silly Azalea, what kind of grandfather would I be if I didn't?" Garrick Ollivander snorted as he handed the girl her caged snowy owl and midnight blue suitcase. "Don't forget to owl me every week, yeah?"
"I won't. Please take care of yourself."
The sound of the train whistle echoed the station.
"Five minutes to departure!" hollered the conductor.
Giving one final hug, Garrick Ollivander bid his granddaughter farewell before watching her board the red steam engine.
The corridors were crowded with noisy and playful children, most of who easily towered over the poor girl. Some were even playing chase in the very limited hallway. Carefully weaving her way through as to not get run over, Azalea finally came across a lesser occupied compartment at the far anterior part of the train. Already there was a boy her age in his school robes. He was staring out the window whilst propping his chin with his arm.
Azalea gingerly slid the compartment door open, promptly earning a yelp from the boy. Now stiffly facing her, the raven-haired boy stared at her alarmed.
"Are they taken?" she asked, gesturing the empty seats. "The others seem quite full."
The look in the boy's eyes turned into instant realization. Shaking his head in response, he watched her whip out her wand and used the locomotor spell to place her suitcase and owl in the overhead storage compartment. She then sat down and looked into the boy's tunnel-black eyes, to his confusion.
"I'm Azalea Ollivander," she suddenly introduced. Ollivander… could she be…? His eyes widened in surprise.
"Severus… Snape. Are you – "
"Ollivander's granddaughter."
"Oh."
The conversation stopped and the atmosphere grew increasingly uncomfortable. Never in her life had Azalea felt such a strong urge to initiate a conversation.
She scanned his figure from top to bottom, mentally taking note of his unkept greasy hair possibly being the negligent result of hair hygiene. Not wanting to sound rude, she resorted to pointing out him already wearing his school uniform.
"Yes," he replied, breaking eye contact and lowered his head.
Just then, the train began to move. Repeated goodbyes from both train and platform resonated right until the train turned a corner.
"Anything off the trolley, dears?"
Severus shook his head with a "no thank you", but Azalea stood up from her seat and walked towards the cart, asking for two cauldron cakes and a handful of jelly slugs before handing the woman three Galleons.
She sat back down and noticed, for a brief moment, his gaze resting on the food in her hands.
"I got you one," she said, handing him one of her cakes, to his initial refusal.
She could not understand him. Why was he refusing even though his eyes clearly stated otherwise? Was he too polite to accept anything, or was it because she was a girl? Either way, Azalea practically flung the cake towards his lap before ignoring him and opening the packet to hers.
Moments later whilst the raven-haired boy was unaware, she caught a glimpse of him nibbling on the cake with an elated smile.
He's weird, she thought.
After eating, Azalea took out her favorite reading book, which just so happened to be a Muggle book. It was a story about a princess being cursed to sleep forever and locked in a tower guarded by a dragon. She liked reading the part where the prince appeared and slayed the dragon, climbed up the tower, and woke the princess with his kiss.
Muggles were strange; they lived in an unthinkably inconvenient world without magic, and yet, still manage to imagine things that actually do exist in the very world of magic. If she were given a choice of one word to describe them, it would be 'creative'.
Peering over, Severus seemed to be, on the contrary, busying himself with the scribbles and circles in his book. His finger gently gliding across each line as his eyes followed every single word. It looked like a first-year textbook.
"What are you reading?"
He tensed. As she leaned in trying to read the handwriting on the page, he immediately shut the book and put the book back into his school bag. However, she managed to read a spell that was on the page.
"'Levicorpus' – I've never seen that spell before. What does it do?"
Azalea had not retreated back into her seat, but instead, rested her chin on her hands which was propped up on her knees. Blood rushed to Severus' cheeks at the close proximity, his heart pounding strongly in his chest. He could practically feel her gaze burning a hole through him.
"It's a spell that – dangles someone by the ankle upside down. I – I made it myself."
Before another question could escape her lips, the compartment door slammed open with a group of tall boys crowding at the entrance. They all had smug looks on their faces and it appears that they have been overhearing Severus and Azalea's conversation.
"Hey guys, look who we've got here – our very own spell-testing subject!" the boy standing in the middle jeered. He was clearly referring to Severus, who had always been the center of bullying because of his unkempt appearance. At this, the other boys snickered as if they had already set out ways to make his seven years of life at Hogwarts miserable.
"Why not you show it to us now so we can use it on you when we get to school?" the tallest boy taunted.
Azalea shot a glare at the boys despite them seemingly ignoring her presence for the time being. No way was she going to swallow down all the insults hurled at Severus like pumpkin juice, not especially since he was her very first Hogwarts friend.
As if sensing the dangerous look at him, the boy who first talked turned to Azalea and spoke to her in a far nicer tone, "Hey, my name is James Potter. You should really come join us and not hang out with this loser over here. He's only going to stink up the entire space with that greasy hair of his."
"For your information, I've been sitting here for more than an hour and have yet to smell anything from him," Azalea retorted. "Besides, I'm sure your compartment smells much worse because of your stinking attitude."
"How dare you—"
To both her and Severus' surprise, a beautiful girl with auburn hair who had been standing behind the boys, or rather, blocked from view by them, tugged onto the enraged boy. It was clear to Azalea that Severus knew the girl somehow, by the way his eyes twinkled the very moment she came into view.
"Come on guys, picking on him isn't worth it. You won't want to get into trouble before even arriving school, would you?"
The boys looked towards her and decided that she was right. They had plenty of time at school to make the pale boy suffer, for reasons unbeknownst to the Ollivander. Soon they were gone and only the emerald-eyed girl remained at the door.
"I'm really sorry about that, Sev. I couldn't stop them coming here after I told them about you—Oh, right, I'm Lily Evans, by the way, and you are…?"
"Azalea Ollivander."
"I see. Nice to meet you."
She turned to Severus with a gentle smile. "Well I should be going now, Potter and the gang will be wondering where I am soon. It's nice seeing you again, Sev."
And with that, Lily had disappeared into the corridors.
Something about Lily had really piqued Azalea's interest, however, not in a good way; the fact that she called Severus by 'Sev' was proof that they knew each other well enough to be using nicknames. This did not sit well with her at all and, for the first time, she had no idea why.
Noticing the change in her facial expression, Severus looked towards the Ollivander with concern.
"We're friends, her house was close to where I live," he explained. "I only let her call me that because she threatened to call me by my last name if I didn't."
"You don't like your last name?"
"No. I'd rather have friends call me by my first name."
All of a sudden, the air felt clear and easy to breathe again. It was as if a heavy weight was lifted off of her chest – a feeling Azalea was not accustomed to. But now another dilemma had arisen: was she to refer to him as 'Snape', or 'Severus' as a friend would? She had already, without a doubt, considered him a friend, but the problem lied within his side. She did not want to get ahead of herself and offend him, neither would upsetting him seemed like an appealing option.
To her relief, he flashed a rare, soft smile and said, "Please call me Severus. I'm happy I got to meet a friend who would stick up for me like you did back there, thank you."
Muttering a shy "You're welcome", Azalea avoided eye contact and attempted to focus her attention on the book on her lap, to no avail. Her mind kept wandering to the raven-haired boy sitting in front of her. She nibbled on one of her jelly slugs before catching him muttering, "Not even Lily stepped in until you did."
Azalea could not help herself from grinning for the rest of the journey.