I write this story down after I learned my former master Severus Snape has died by the hand of He Who Shall Not Be Named.
Not many of his friends – he didn't have many to begin with – know I was his assistant when he was a young man. We met at a conference of young wizards in London, I think it was called 'Wizardry in the big city', but I'm not sure. We were both sent there by our schools, he was already at Hogwarts at the time, I was from the Dutch School of Tovenarij. We talked about potion making in the interval and there was a bond between us immediately. I admired his vast knowledge of plants for potion making and I liked his wit.
I seem to remember walking down an alley, opposite Nero Coffee at Shaftsbury Avenue, which is a well-known spot for wizards. I believe one can still easily flush down through the toilet there, to access the underground assembly hall. But we went up during the break and Severus showed me a small park behind the church of St. Giles. The Phoenix Garden it was called. The garden was given that name by muggles because of the war, but wizards gave it the same name because the head gardener was family of Hagrid, a man at Hogwarts who supposed to hatch the eggs of the Phoenix.
It was well after midnight and Severus had to use his wand to open the gates of the garden. He still did that sort of thing back then. Later he became very stern and rigid and refused to do anything that a pupil would be punished for at school. But that evening he showed me all the special plants and explained what you could do with them. There was one particular large plant, a giant Snake Weed, that he regretted not to be able to grow at Hogwarts, for it was too cold up north for it. In the end we forgot to go back to the meeting and it was when we realized everyone had long gone, when he asked me if I would like to be his assistant at Hogwarts in the new term. He had be appointed as a teacher by a man called Dumbledore. I did not want to leave Holland, but such was his power over me, that I agreed.
When I travelled to Hogwarts I took a plant with me for Severus: a giant Snake Weed I had taken from the botanical garden of Leiden. He was very chuffed and showed me a section in his potion book in which a mix of Giant Snake Weed and Great Water Tuft would make a very powerful poly juice potion.
At Hogwarts I assisted him during his long days in the potion classroom and when students asked who that strange man with the funny accent was, he said: 'Mind you own business'. Still, he was much friendlier with his students at that time than after that tragic day, when he lost Lily. I could have known it would not end well, because I knew how it had started.
I had noticed his book of potion making was lying open on the page with the Snake Weed for a quite a while and I wondered whether he was planning to make that poly juice. He didn't talk to me about it. But then he didn't talk about a lot of things, like Lily, the girl who had been his fellow student for a while and now graduated. He had her picture in his pocket, but refused to tell me about her.
One night, I noticed him walking over the college square at night. It was a full moon. I went down to his dungeon, to look at the book and my eye fell upon the recipe once more. It said the Great Water Tuft had to be harvested at full moon, in deep water. The water plant was guarded by little insects that would attack any thief viciously, but they could not see human skin. It was therefore wise to remove any clothes before entering the water.
I walked after Severus, who was heading down the Dark Forest. I felt strangely excited following the man I knew so well and yet was an enigma to me in many ways. I remember an owl hooting above our heads and he looked at it, nearly spotting me, had I not dived behind a tree. It made me smile.
He walked to the great lake and then slowly undressed. I noticed how fine his body looked in the moonlight, very pale, but slim and pliant. He put his long black hair into tail with a piece of string, a magical weed in his mouth to breath under water and a piece of the Giant Snake Weed in his hand. He touched the water with his other hand, testing it's coldness. For a moment his manhood glistened in the white light, before he gradually went deeper and deeper into the water.
It must have been at least an hour, before he emerged again. I was stunned: the transformation had taken place under water and out came a man who looked very differently. He had short dark hair and glasses. I was puzzled by this rather unspectacular change. Why would he had gone through so much trouble to look like my next door neighbor? So I decided to go after him.
He went to a meeting of young wizards in a typical suburban house in Wimbledon and among them was the girl from the picture. They called her Lily.
'Why James, I though you couldn't come tonight?' she asked surprised when the changed Severus came in. He made some excuse and sat beside her, talking to her all evening. She was laughing and smiling at him, but at the same time I could see there was a little doubt in her eye, as if she saw something wasn't quite right. I observed them from the garden, as I was terrified Severus would see me.
'So where is Severus?' asked a tiny girl next to Lily and a red headed boy sneered: 'Why would anyone ask that dreary sod?'
'Ow, don't say that. He's alright,' said Lily, and I saw that 'James' gave her a grateful look.
I suddenly thought of a brilliant idea. I had a recipe for a very short living, but easy to make poly juice potion and I looked in the garden for some birch twigs and Jasmine. I had to climb over a hedge to find what I was looking for and nearly got bitten by the neighbor's bulldog, but finally I managed to make a little pill that turned me into someone else for about an hour. I had to watch the time.
'Well I be damned, we were just talking of you, Severus', said the red head when I stepped in through the garden doors. 'James' startled, went red as a tomato when he saw his true self come in. For a moment I realised that my joke was in fact very cruel and I regretted it. But I wanted to be a very jolly Severus, someone everybody liked. And they did. In fact Lily talked longer to me than anyone else in the room and she was clearly enchanted by me. For an hour.
'Oh, Severus, I never knew you are such a wit!' she laughed and from the corner of my eye I saw the real Severus pining and sulking. He shouldn't have been depressed. He was a wit. I knew he was, if only he would take the effort to be more agreeable in company. Anyway, I concluded he should be grateful I made him the star of the evening in the mind of Lily.
He didn't agree with me. When I met him at Hogwarts next morning, he as Severus, I as my usual self, he just spoke one line to me after breakfast. 'Pack your things'.
I didn't have the guts to argue with him. I left full of shame and I never saw him again. I'm not sure I'm ashamed anymore, now I've written my story down. Perhaps I did him a favor to let him see he could be anyone he wished as Severus - he did not need to change his appearance for it.
Now he's dead. Killed by a Giant Snake, not the weed. And I've never been able to tell him how much I loved him.