DISCLAIMER: I am making no money off of this, and this site isn't either. This is purely fan-fiction written by a weird person who has absolutely nothing better to do than write this stuff. I don't own Harry Potter, Hogwarts, Snape, etc. J.K.R. does.

Note: I wrote this before I read the book, even though I know I posted it on the day it came out. I was awaitng eagerly for my copy to arrive in the mail.

Friend So Quickly Lost

Severus Snape, a black-haired youth of only eleven (though he could indeed pass as nine!) clutched at his Hogwarts letter dearly as he ascended from platform 9 3/4.

"Goodbye, Severus!" screamed his baby sister Sylvia, though Severus' mother Eileen put a long finger to the ruby lips of the infant. Once an older boy had taken Severus' trunk and placed it who knows where, the trembling first-year leaned out of the train window. His mother's hand toughed his own.

"Remember," whispered Eileen Snape nee Prince whispered hoarsely. "Remember what I told you to do, dear."

Sylvia climbed on her mother's shoulder to kiss her brother on the cheek.

Eileen continued, "Don't go into Gryffindor if you can avoid it. Your father . . . from what I've told him about all the houses, he only likes Slytherin and is determined that you should also be in it—because, also, my entire family has always been Slytherin. He will be furious if you do not go into that house."

Severus queried, "But why not Gryffindor in particular? Are there not two other houses besides it?"

"Yes, but they are not bound with such rivalry as Gryffindor and Slytherin."

"Oh." Snape began to understand.

"Do try to avoid the Gryffindors in general, Severus. They rather tend to be inordinate fools."

"And that is your opinion of them? Or just what he has always said?"

Eileen threw up her hand to face the sky. "Oh, Severus, I do not know. It has been so long since I was at Hogwarts."

At this, the whistle blew, and the carriage lunged forward.

"Write me, Severus!"

"I will, mother."

So Severus began his journey, absolutely decided that he wanted to be in Gryffindor, just to spite his father.

……………………………………

"Hullo! My name is Lily! I'm a first year and I'm desperately excited! What's your name?"

Severus raised his eyes to see one of the first girls he ever though remotely attractive. Soft green eyes, shining hair pulled back with a neat ribbon—she was the epitome of prettiness and femininity. Snape's immediate response was to bury his head deeper into his new potions book, which he had been reading, to hide the tips of his ears. They had gone quite pink.

"Oh, come now!" The girl grabbed his book and threw it into the satchel at his feet. "Do be sociable! Now I've already introduced myself, so who are you?"

Severus glared at his shoes. Oh, horror, he could feel the heat in his cheeks rise now too!

"Severus Snape."

Lily laughed. Hers was a bright and melodical mirth, but Snape felt the discomfiture of the fact that she was laughing at him, his name.

"My, that is so strange!" commented the girl genially. "I'm sorry, that was rude of me." She made an attempt to regain her composure. "I suppose I'm not used to wizarding names yet. I mean, of the few I've come across, almost none of them hold any semblance to ordinary . . . what do you call them, the people who aren't witches and wizards . . ."

"Muggles."

"Right Muggles. None of the names I've come across seem like any 'muggle' names." She intimated the quotation marks around the foreign word with her fingers.

"You were not born into a wizard family?" Snappe was very curious.

"Oh! No, indeed! Both my parents are non-magicial, and that's a fact! They didn't know what to make of my letter at first." She smiled, and Severus noticed her teeth: straight, white, and beautiful as the rest of her. He was painfully aware of his own slightly-askew front incisors.

"In any case," Lily went on, "What's it like to have been raised in a wizarding family?" The question was innocent enough, but Snape's memory clouded over with unpleasant scenes. Tobius Snape, whip in hand, striking Severus and Eileen mercilessly, simply because they had run out of vodka. Eileen Snape, crying when Tobias refused to accept Sylvia as his own daughter because she lacked his atrocious nose. (Severus had no problem there.) Severus hiding in his closet with a candle and a book, reading in safety while his parents threw chairs at each other downstairs. Not things he wanted to tell Lily about, but the only truths he could share.

He could, of course, tell her some ridiculous fantasy, describe what he remembered reading from the few fiction books he had perused. Yet, those all seemed too fake to him—for in these books, the parents ended their minor quarrels without coming to blows and instead a kiss—what sort of people did author intend to deceive?

But Lily stared, waiting impatiently for an answer, and Severus felt like he had outwaited his time to reply. "Let us not speak of my family," he said slowly, "Until, perhaps, a much later conversation."

He was suddenly very proud of his answer, for he both got rid of the irksome subject of his family while showing Lily that he wished to talk with her later. Lily nodded with naïve understanding.

"I see," she mused, and leaned back in the seat across from him, which she had taken without a thought. Then, she ventured, "Why aren't you outside, making new friends, meeting people?"

"And why aren't you?" Snape meant to sound less mean than he eventually came across.

Lily looked at the floor. "Fine, I see you want me to go—" and she stood.

Snape interrupted quickly. "No, I did not mean that."

Lily, compromised, seated herself again. "Of course not." She went on, "Well, since you asked, the reason I'm in here instead of out there" (she gestured beyond the compartment's door) "Is because I saw someone I thought looked just as scared as I."

Poor Severus! He wondered why she did not notice his blazing ears! Then he remembered that she could not see them through his long hair. A blessing, that! He must remember never to cut it.

"You thought me . . . scared?"

Lily nodded eagerly. "Scared and gloomy and depressing."

Here Snape gave a laugh—not a long one, just a quick 'hah!'. It seemed to enliven him.

"I'll wonder at that a while," he declared, "For this would be my usual state, I think."

…………………..

The pair chatted gaily enough for most of the rest of the trip, until, quite inexplicably, Severus found Lily's head on his shoulder, and the girl asleep. How she had changed seats he did not remember. Moreover, why would she dare to rest her golden locks upon his stiff, bony limbs? They had only just met . . .

But, then, he decided that he was quite tickled at his aptitude for so quickly gleaning the friendship from this girl. So what if she was a mudblood. He would make every attempt to retain her favor, now that he had somehow gotten it. The tension he felt that morning had thoroughly evaporated. Severus almost felt like dropping off himself, when there was a sudden knock on the door.

"Evans, are you in there?"

It was a male voice, just barely tinged with the effects of puberty—but to Snape, it sounded manly. Lily awoke with an uncomfortable movement, hearing her name. She stood, wiped her eyes and walked to the door.

Four boys stood there—those whom Snape later should know and love as the Marauders.

"Hey, Lily, you disappeared. We've been looking for you everywhere."

"Oh, Potter, take your little friends and bother some other silly head, now would you?" Yet, Lily began to play with her hair coquettishly.

Potter leaned inside. "Who's in here with—oh!" He was caught with surprise. "I know you from somewhere," he said bluntly, teasingly. Snape felt like the mouse who accidentally had kidnapped the cat's fish, and was now cornered by the aforementioned cat.

"I most definitely have never seen you in my life." Severus' face was set impassively in stone.

"You're a Prince, my mother heartily disliked yours." The boy said this proudly, defiantly.

"Actually, I am a Snape. Severus Snape." Severus raised his wand and pointed it at James Potter. The latter laughed.

"Don't actually pretend you know how to—Eeek!"

For Snape had cast a random hex at the boys. They took off running, dragging Lily with them. As they did, one of the other three boys (Sirius) yelled:

"We got Snape's girlfriend! We got Snape's girlfriend!"

Lily only cast a desperately embarrassed glance back at Severus.

"I hope they all go to Slytherin," Snape decided testily, meaning the boys—not Lily.

The remainder of his journey was lonely and uneventful, but Severus did not mind. He had at least one friend, and he knew she would come back eventually. She did not.

…………

He did not see her, actually, until the great sorting feast. The sorting had been going on slowly and deliberately. Snape's attention was keen.

"Marcus Aurorlius!"

"Hufflepuff!"

"Clementine Antonio!"

"Ravenclaw!"

"Black, Sirius!"

This was one of the boys from the train that Snape recognized. He was shocked when the smug devil was proclaimed to be a "Gryffindor!"

This was a severe blow to Severus's intentions. Well, he decided, no matter what house he ended up being in, he could deal with it as long as that one called Potter was not in it. Because ha had stolen away Lily so abruptly, Severus held a very strong bias against him already.

" . . . Evans, Lily!"

The name resounded through the hall as Dumbledore, the headmaster, called it. There was a silence, and then another teacher stepped to him and whispered something in his ear. "All right, well, Lily Evans will be in here momentarily," Dumbledore announced hastily, and went onwards with the calling. "Richard Ethelbit! . . ."

Eventually, they got to the L's.

" . . . Lupin, Remus!"

"Gryffindor!"

All right, Snape thought to himself, that Remus boy did seem to be the nicest one in the lot of boys he had met that afternoon. He would not mind Remus, he decided, and he was sure that, without Potter (for how could Potter possibly be a Gryffindor?) he might be a bit of a joker, but harmless.

" . . . Pettigrew, Peter!"

The hat had a hard time deciding on this one, but finally announced:

"Gryffindor!"

Snape scowled. Peter looked like a regular rascal. Probably the hat made a mistake on that one. Immediately after Peter came Potter, however, and Snape's attention was captured.

"Potter, James!"

The hat barely touched his head before announcing, like doomsday:

"Gryffindor!"

That about decimated Snape's desires to be in Gryffindor. When finally, he heard

"Snape, Severus!"

Like in a trance, he slowly approached the sorting hat, and it was placed upon his head. He only had one thing on his mind.

Not Gryffindor. Merlin, don't get me Gryffindor. I couldn't stand Gryffindor . . .

Really? The hat asked. You really do not want to be in Gryffindor? I sense Prince blood in you, undoubtedly . . . your mother was a fine wizard, Severus, a fine wizard . . . you sure you don't want to go to Gryffindor? She almost did.

No Gryffindor.

All right, the hat decided, then it must be . . .

"Slytherin!" shrieked the hat. Snape, almost fainting with anxiety. He stumbled back to his seat and had to have a long swig of pumpkin soda.

At this point, the great door of the hall opened a crack, and Lily, followed by the nurse, came into the room.

"Now dear," the nurse was whispering a bit too loudly, "You musn't excite yourself after that fall you had . . ."

Lily disregarded her. Dumbledore, seeing her, motioned for her to sit down at the hat. She found Severus in the crowd and made a motion of recognition. He nodded, crossing his fingers . . .

"Gryffindor!" shrieked the hat.

Severus wanted to cry.

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