I do not own Harry Potter, or anything you recognize as belonging to the Harry Potter World. I do own the OC mentioned herein and the idea behind this story.
Spring, 1976, Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry
Fifth Year, Severus Snape
Severus Snape, Slytherin, had just went to apologize to Lily Evans, Gryffindor, for calling her a mudblood yet again. He hadn't meant to, truly he hadn't, but the Marauders had been tormenting him nonstop and he had snapped, he just hadn't meant to snap at his first, and nearly only friend. The other Slytherins didn't quite count as friends, merely allies, and he used that term loosely in regard to them.
Of course, after walking up all seven floors to the entrance to the Gryffindor Common Room entrance, Lily refused outright to come out, or even listen to his apology. He could hear the others laughing at him though, just through the portrait of the Fat Lady that looked down her nose at him, huffing and mumbling under her breath about him.
Tears starting to form, Severus turned, leaned against the cold stone wall and slid down, drawing his legs up to his chest and resting her forehead against his robe clad knees, quietly sniffing back tears from having royally buggering this up big time. He felt himself shattering, having said that and not being able to at least attempt to make amends.
What Severus didn't know, though, was that a Ravenclaw was heading in the wrong direction for her own Common Room, having had her nose stuck in a book and getting turned around from dodging about a crowd of students at the staircases. Her navy coloured dragonhide boots making barely a whisper of sound as she padded silently, pausing only when she heard a soft, ragged exhale of breath.
Lowering her book, a rather thick tome about paint potions and how to make them, the olive toned female frowned and sighed quietly. She had heard about what happened out at the lake, nearly the entire school knew by now, and she thought it unfortunate but not big enough to keep gossiping about in the halls or Commons. Slipping a blue and bronze silk ribbon between the pages to mark her place, the Fifth Year girl moved to sit beside the boy.
"Is the Gryffindor being unreasonable, Snape?" She asked quietly, her slightly accented voice startling the Slytherin. Staring at the opposite wall, her legs curled to her side away from the other student, the girl pretended not to notice the look of nearly fearful surprise on his pale, tear stained face.
"What do you want, Gray?" He demanded, narrowing his red rimmed jet eyes at her, a sneer curving his thin lips.
"You are sitting up here on the seventh floor corridor, right next to the entrance to the lion's den rather than down in the snake pit, or even at the eagle's nest. Its only natural I'm curious upon your behavior." She replied evenly, finally turning to look at him, her violet ringed amber eyes a tad on the expressionless side.
She didn't look straight at him for long though, turning to stare at the wall again. She was not unaware of how unsettling her eyes were, even the Professors were unnerved some days when she looked at them for too long during a lesson.
"If she isn't willing to listen to your heartfelt apologies, then she was not a true friend." The Ravenclaw continued, shifting slightly on the stone floor, making Severus realize just how uncomfortable they were.
He still couldn't fathom why the other fifth year bothered sitting beside him, as she said, right next to the lion's den. Her house barely got along with them better than his own, and it was usually because they tutored the idiotic lions.
"What is it to you?" He demanded, his voice loosing some of the ragged edge and becoming more of his usual drawl. He kept his eyes narrowed on her though, it wouldn't be the first time a Ravenclaw hexed him or helped along with the Marauders pranks.
Gray only shrugged indifferently as she leaned back against the wall, pulling her wand to cast a cushioning charm on the floor where they sat.
"I am only curious. If someone cannot forgive one word said in the heat of embarrassment after many years of friendship, then they must not truly be a good friend. While I may not have many friends, even I could understand words said to me in anger toward another is not a reason to completely cut off all forms of communication." She slipped her wand back inside the holster on her arm and folded her hands in her lap as she kept sitting there with him.
"This is no concern of yours, we are not friends, so do not assume to give me advice." He hissed, glaring at her as though she was Sirius Black or James Potter rather than a girl who before now had only spoken to him when paired in classes.
"Ah, of course, how silly of me." Turning, with a rueful smile curving her rather plain lips, she held out her hand. "Hazel Gray, pleasure to meet you." There was a playful light in her strange eyes, even among Pureblood standards.
Eyeing her as though it was a trick, Severus looked around the hall, but of course there was no one else there, even after casting a spell to see if anyone else was around, everyone else was behind the portrait.
Turning only the slightest bit, and moving as though he expecting a hex, he slowly placed his hand in her own. "Severus Snape," he begrudgingly replied, giving the barest shake before withdrawing his own slightly calloused hand from her own smooth one.
"Well Severus," Hazel started, moving to stand without aid from her hands, something that had the male gaping at her for a second before his Slytherin mask taking over once again, and turning to face him, though her eyes didn't look directly into his own before continuing. "I was going to stop into my Common Room and change out some books before moving to work on a small project in a classroom Professor Flitwick has permitted me to use. Would you care to join me? I could use a second opinion on a potion that is part of it." She offered, placing both hands on her bag's strap as she waiting for a response, her sight set strictly on his neck rather than his face.
"Only if you explain instantly why you do not look me in the eye." He drawled, moving to his feet a tad sluggishly, his limbs a bit stiff from having sat there so long on stone. He himself kept his eyes on her face, feeling a tad uneasy around her.
"My eyes unsettle everyone but mio Papa, so I have learned to limit the amount by not looking anyone in the eye for long. If I do not, they can stare at something else and I do not feel as terrible about making them so." She shrugged, moving her eyes to his at last and keeping them there, a bit of an uncomfortable fidget to her stance now, rather than uncaring.
"While they are strange, they do not truly unnerve me." He responded slowly, his face fighting between paling more and flushing in embarrassment.
A real smile, how he knew they he wasn't certain, broke across her face and Hazel beamed up at him. "Wonderful! Well, let us be on our way, then, shall we?" Without waiting for a reply, she started back toward her own Common Room with the Eagle Knocker, just waiting with a new riddle for her.
Severus followed along, not quite sure what to think of the rather eccentric Ravenclaw who seemed determined to spend time with him. He could think of no real reason for her to wish to do so, and it was very perplexing to the Slytherin.
Catching up to her much shorter strides by the time she started knocking, Severus tried to find interest in anything else, rather than the riddle, but was unable to do so once he heard it.
'A murderer is condemned to death. He has to choose between three rooms. The first is full of raging Fiendfyre, the second is full of Dementors ready to give a Kiss, and the third is full of lions that haven't eaten in three years. Which room is safest for him?'
Severus honestly had no clue which of the three rooms, yet Hazel smirked and cocked an eyebrow as she started speaking.
"The room with the lions that haven't eaten in three years. After all that time, they'd have perished and would be little more than fur and bone lying about." She replied, still smirking at the door opened and he could see inside the Common Room.
It really was lovely, he realized, as he followed her inside at her beckoning. Though he didn't more far from the entrance, seeing as many of her housemates turned and stared at him, making him shuffle a moment before straightening and staring right back at them.
"I'll be only a moment, ignore them, they are just surprised I brought anyone into the nest." Hazel said, darting off to the girls dorm rooms to exchange books, at least they was what he believed her to be doing. In truth, he was a bit more concerned about some of the looks and the whispers going on about him as he stood there, waiting for the chit. Though he was intrigued by one of the males taking a bit louder than the rest to who Severus assumed was his mate.
"You don't suppose Gray brought the Slytherin up here to have him go through our library, do you?" The redhead asked, looking Severus over as though he was going to steal secrets from them.
Snape couldn't help but scoff at the very idea, he was not interested in their books, only this project the girl was working on, seeing as he only knew it involved a potion, something he was Outstanding at.
Luckily he didn't have to suffer their ignorance any longer, as Hazel had finally reappeared and was walking toward him, a small, unsure smile on her olive toned face as she neared him.
"Shall we?" She asked, moving to open the doorway for them both and waiting in the corridor for Severus, shifting back and forth on the balls of her feet as she tried to keep form asking him to hurry. She was all but vibrating, and the male couldn't help but feel himself getting more and more interested in this project she mentioned.
Once they were both outside, and the Ravenclaw making the way down to the third floor corridor Severus started running ideas through his mind before she randomly spoke out, considering she had seemed content to just walk in silence.
"I'm working on a side project for my O.W.L.s, I feel I'll need the extra to pass." It was said so randomly, the Slytherin almost feared he had imagined it, until he noticed her shoving a lock of dark hair behind her ear as she lead him to a rather thick door and whispering the password in a language that was not English or Latin. "Its just inside, only... Don't touch anything without asking what it is first, please." She was nervous, he could tell that fairly easily from her constant shifting of her weight.
"I am not a dunderhead," he drawled, moving inside after her and looking around, one eyebrow raised. There were constructs lying about, and several medium sized jars with different coloured potions of a rather thick consistency, if he was to guess correctly. But what caught his black eyes the most was what appeared to have once been a construct of a bust, covered in varying shades of seemingly goop or running pumpkin juice that was once solid in random colours.
He couldn't help but curl his lip at the sight, turning to stare questioningly at Hazel as she stared at the floor, which he realized had more of the random smears and a few splatters much like the bust.
"I've been trying to make paint potions, to colour the constructs with, and then turn the construct into a portrait and then back. I can get the paints to work on the construct, but the second I start transfiguring them into a portrait, it changes. Turning it back into a construct results in... well, that." She pointed vaguely toward the bust he had been sneering at, a blush darkening her face as she glanced up at him. "Without the paints, I can transfigure them perfectly like I want, but that isn't anything special. I've attempted to charm the paints, but that results in the goop."
Moving over to a clear table far from the 'project', if one could call the mess that, she pulled out the book from earlier and opened it to the ribbon and pointed to a passage, waiting for Severus to join her at the desk.
Striding over to the girl, he scanned over the potion she was showing him, raising his eyebrow once more as he realized this was a NEWT level potion work, with NEWT level charms woven in.
"You expect to make this, and you haven't even passed your O.W.L.s?" He asked, seemingly holding back a chuckle at her nerve to attempt such, with O.W.L.s only weeks away.
Of course, he watched her stiffen from the corner of his eye at his tone.
"I have been brewing paint potions since third year, thank you very much, but those paints do not transfigure correctly, changing colour to the opposite of the starting shade." She replied primly, turning her nose up into the air to try hiding the furious blush spreading across her cheeks. "If you do not feel as though you are capable, then you are more than welcome to leave, I shall continue on my own." She snapped, moving to shut the book, but his hand grabbing her wrist stopped that.
"I am more capable than you to brew such an advanced potion." He growled, scanning over the page before moving to gather the needed supplies and starting to brew, casting a charm to make the process hover in the air in glowing letters as he worked, a line vanishing from the top and moving in the air as he completed each step.
He never noticed the little smirk on Hazel's lips as she moved to examine the older paint potions she made, checking her notes and letting Severus work in silence, something she was content to do as well.
Half an hour later, she was startled from her own work from Severus' soft crow of delight, all but jumping out of her skin as he turned toward her, holding a vial of perfect, advanced paint potion in the air triumphantly. A pleased smirk spreading across his thin lips before falling at the look of delight on the girl's face only feet in front of him.
"You are as cunning as a snake, Miss Gray," he begrudgingly admitted, realizing he had been duped by a Ravenclaw. He should have known better than to raise to the bait so easily placed before him. He had acted rather like a Gryffindor, instead of a Slytherin.
"Grazie, Severus, I have been struggling with that particular potion for over a month. It needed a master's touch, rather than my own." Moving closer, she stood on her tip toes and pressed her lips to his sallow cheek, making him flush. He wasn't even aware she had taken the vial from him until she was back over to the bust and Scourgifying it before taking out a clean paint brush and starting to paint over the eyes, lips and hair of the bust, casting charms as she did so.
Severus couldn't help the grin spreading across his face now, watching her drift into her own little world as she worked, changing the colours and texture as she painted so that it appeared real in all but the skin, that was obviously a construct and would not be mistaken for real skin. Moving to lean back against the desk with the potions book, the Slytherin marked the page with the ribbon before starting to flip through the pages idly.
This carried on for several minutes before he heard her start humming, looking up from the book just in time to watch her start transfiguring the bust into a portrait, the construct taking life as though it were any other portrait in the corridors, though it lacked a voice, setting it apart. He then watched as she reversed the process, returning it into the original construct, only this time it kept the colours just like the portrait and retained the life, making Hazel start bouncing in place delightfully as she turned to hug him.
"It worked! It worked!" She then released him to bounce about the room as though she had good sense. Rather Hufflepuff of her, and he made certain to inform her of such.
"I do not care! It finally worked! I shall be sure to include you in the work, as without you I would not have gotten the potion done in time." Smiling at him, her violet ringed amber eyes shining in pure joy. "Thank you, Severus. Because of this, I shall finally be able to start my summer studies to Apprentice under mio Papa and learn the art of Wizard Portraits." Grasping his face in her hands, she planted a rather sound kiss on both of his sunken cheeks that were radiating heat from her actions before releasing him and dancing about again.
Severus, however, was now shifting uncomfortably. Even Lily had not been so free with his person, less lone kissed him on his cheeks, and more than once in a single setting! Though, it seemed the excitable girl finally realized this, halting her celebration and covering her mouth with her hands.
"Oh! Forgive me, Severus, I did not mean to over step my bounds. Please, I did not mean any offence, but I am accustomed to theíous mou, my uncles, doing the same when something makes them very happy." Hazel looked stricken, as though she had broken the fragile thread of friendship she was trying to weave between them.
"Yes well," Severus started, looking down his rather large hooked nose at her, "so long as you do not turn so easily excitable often, I shall be willing to overlook it... this... once." He drawled, hiding his own happiness at anyone being willing to treat him thus behind his uncaring Slytherin mask he had perfected over the years. But he could not hide the lingering pink tint to his cheeks.
A relieved smile curved her own lips as a soft sigh escaped her, making him smirk mentally at how easily that was handled. Maybe loosing Lily wouldn't be so terrible after all, seeing as this Pureblood girl was treating him as an equal, even if it was for his potions expertise.
A.N. ~ Hey everyone, Hollowg1rl here, and this is my very first published fanfic. I also do not currently have a Beta. Now before I start getting people yelling at me, this is an AU starting in the Marauders' fifth year at Hogwarts, as I'm sure you have read if you read the first chapter. As such, I am aware that the Ravenclaw Tower entrance is on the west side fifth floor and you go up a staircase to get to the eagle knocker. I broke away from Canon because there is no plausible reason for a Ravenclaw to be two floors away from her Common Room even with her nose stuck inside a book, no matter how interesting. This is going to be (so far) the only major Hogwarts related Canon thing I am going to change. If the entrance was not on the same floor as Gryffindor, then Hazel would never have ran into Snape.
That being said, I will try and keep Severus as Canon as possible when dealing with Canon characters that we have seen interactions of them together. If we have not had a Canon interaction, I shall be using my imagination. That does not mean I will not stray into far off AU if it is required for the story. The same will be said for all other Canon characters, I shall try and keep them as in character if possible. Hazel is an OC, but I refuse to turn her into a Mary Sue, she will have flaws and quirks just like everyone else, however that does not mean she is going to be a character you can shove under the carpet and forget, she will have a rather major role in this story, and if I get enough interest, a fairly main role in its sequel. She does speak (as revealed in this chapter) English, Italian, and Greek. It will not be used often, save "mio Papa" which is just "my father" as she is not English fully. That is just how she refers to her father, its a quirk.
Now, please forgive me for the very long A.N. but I wanted to clear a few things up now, before going to far into the story. These will not always been nearly an entire page from here on out, but I wanted to cover what I would ask as a reader so things are easier to understand, and if you decide you do not want to read, you are aware before getting overtly invested in this story. I will not be offended if you decide you want nothing to do with this story after this first chapter, and I thank you for taking the time to read what you have.
With that said, please, R&R, let me know what you think, if you want me to continue and anything you would like to see in future chapters. I will be bringing in other Canon characters in later chapters, this is just a teaser, if you will. I will also state that this is a WIP, it is not completely written out, though it is completely figured out, and the sequel already in the works idea wise. I just have to write it all out when I have time. I do have a few chapters already pre-written, and will be posting them once a week so long as I have them, and will inform you once I run out of written chapters, at which point I will upload as I have them written.
Thanks again, and I hope to see you all again soon!
(Chapter pre-note: 3,216 words)