"You're right, Severus. I don't know what to believe in anymore. So, if it's quite alright with you- and if it's not, come to think of it- I'm putting my faith in you. I'll do whatever you need me to do. My wand is yours. I'm for you, because Dumbledore is gone and that leaves you as the most powerful force of good left to us."
"More powerful than the Potter boy?" He replied coldly, with disgust and even uncertainty. The wind whipped his hair across the pale, pained face a few more times, and he seemed impatient to decide whether or not I can be trusted.
"More powerful-" relentless wind makes it difficult to find the right words, especially when there just might not be any, "because you, Severus, do it for your own reasons- and yes, because it's selfish in a way. That's why I can trust you. Harry will abandon his cause to save the few who are close to him. You've lost all you can lose. As have I."
A door unbolted and blasted forward into the room, narrowly missing the edge of Snape's robes- flashes and lights illuminated the Room of Requirement as Snape whipped around and shot back him own spells.
It's a slow process, falling in love. When my mother laid eyes on my step-father, she tells me, she knew immediately- his eyes- that all she missed in life had come to claim her, in the form of a strong and handsome wizard. I think that's bullshit. Sorry if that offends you- not too apologetic, but aware- it's just that it's to possible. People are complex, and the mere idea that every intricate detail of their soul is apparent to anyone who looks at them, is bullshit.
My mom and my step-dad fight. A lot. Not in the way my mom and biological dad fight- with plates flying across living rooms, and shattering against elegantly painted walls, will lots of yelling and pretentious statements about why the other person is going to hell. Not in ways that leave my little sister scared out of her mind, with me their to pick up the pieces- of glass, and plates, and my sister's fragile worldview, and my mother's sadness- not that kind of fighting. Mom and Eric fight quietly, and it scares me shitless more than any neighbors-call-the-police-about-noise-level argument, and it doesn't even reach my sister's ears. It's about sending me to Hogwarts. No, it's about a lot of things- one of many reasons why the very foundations of their marriage is crumling, is borne of my invitation to Hogwarts. My acceptance letter. My ink statement of Freak. The piece of paper separating me from every reality I knew about. My salvation. The reason my sister will grow up feeling left behind, but tough; she'll deal with it. My ticket to… to… something bigger than myself. Magic.
The only remaining problem, once my parents decide that I can go, and I explain to my sister that I love her just as much from Scotland as from a bedroom down the hall, the only issue once I left my house- yes, past tense now, because it was six years ago- was that I understood nothing about Magic. I knew it represented excitement and grabbed all the innermost sparks of my imagination and pulled them into reality with a flourish- I knew the bright and sparkly, escapism, magic-love-potion childhood version of what awaited me at Hogwarts. I didn't know about Dementors. Or Severus Snape. The Crutacious Curse. I didn't know- I couldn't have.