This is a little one-shot of how I wish Severus Snape's first feast had gone. It's also a piece of a much larger story that I'm having a difficult time putting to paper, but hopefully this will help jump start it.

Premise: What if Lily Evans wasn't Severus Snape's only basis for friendship? What if Severus had other real friends to turn to when he lost her? Well, this is the start of one of those friendships.

As the feast appeared, Evan Rosier turned to his friend Marek with a lightly teasing grin. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were glad that one of your own got sentenced to the Lion's Den."

"You'd be right," Marek snorted, shaking his head. "Sirius is an arrogant, ill-mannered bully, and I didn't realize until I went back last summer just how nice it was to be away from him."

"I can imagine," a quiet voice murmured off to the left - one obviously not meant to be overheard.

Turning, Marek saw it was one of the new first years seated next to him. He was pale and thin with lanky, shoulder length black hair. Between that and the hunched, cowed way he held himself Marek could see how his cousin would have identified thus kid as a target. He sighed sadly. "Got to you already, did he?"

The boy just nodded without raising his eyes, his hair falling over his shoulder to cover his face.

"Hey, chin up now," Evan said gently, reaching across the table and prodding the kid's head up with a single finger while ignoring his flinch. "You're in Slytherin, and we look after our own."

Hesitantly meeting first Evan's eyes then Marek's before hastily dropping his gaze back to the table, the boy emphasized "but you said HE's one of your own."

"He's my cousin," Marek affirmed calmly, "but family loyalty can only stretch so far."

"Yeah, and so far it's stretched to you not retaliating," Evan chuckled, but he quickly sobered. "Not that family loyalty seems to mean much to him."

"No, but just because he acts like that doesn't mean that I should do the same. As long as I keep I'll know that he's still the one on the wrong." Marek responded smugly before turning back to his new, self-appointed charge. "Besides, Sirius hates being ignored, so it doubles as retaliation in itself. Got that, kid?"

"Yeah," was the soft, shaky reply spoken from behind the curtain of hair.

Feeling a strong protective instinct rising, Marek decided it was time to table the Sirius bashing and get to know this shy, soft spoken new Slytherin who had already made an enemy of his cousin. With a wave of his hand he moved on. "So, anyway, that's enough about him. I'm Marek Black, and this is my friend Evan Rosier. What's your name?"

"Severus Snape"

So since my brain stopped flowing here, this is where it ends. I hope the formatting I have here transfers over this time; it's supposed to be double spaced and all that but the site likes to drop that when I go to publish the story.