1- Prologue: Part 1

A/N: Just to clarify, this is NOT a Severus/Lily story, nor is the whole story about Severus in the third person!!! The first few chapters may make it seem that way, but it ISN'T! Trust me. This is my Lily/James story that has been in the making for a couple years now, but once I read Deathly Hallows I *HAD* to write in Severus' part in the story...! Just wanted to make that clear. Okay, now please enjoy.

A small boy with lengthy black hair hurriedly pushed his way through the many shrubs that surrounded the park he had previously been playing in. He was going to be late. That was the sorry price he had to pay for straying from the sidewalks that trailed through the wooded park.

His footsteps pounded swiftly upon the pavement that, had the boy not been wearing shoes, would have burnt his feet due to the all-consuming summer heat. His eyes focused on the ground as he moved along, not glancing right or left until he heard a series of high-pitched giggles.

He glanced over to the other side of the street where he saw a small girl with strawberry blonde hair who might have been a little older than him happily playing with a pair of dolls. He sneered disdainfully at the pitiful means that Muggles developed to entertain themselves. Of course, though he was a wizard, his means of entertainment did not run very far from the girl's... But that wasn't his choice.

Just as the boy's line of vision was about to pass away from the girl's house, he caught a brilliant flash of red in the corner of his eye. He stopped short and quickly turned back to face the home. Another girl with dark red hair had run around the side of the house and joined the first, and a large, chocolate-colored Labrador retriever had followed the second girl to the yard. The red-haired girl was now lying on the grass, smiling up at the older girl. She reached her hand imploringly toward one of the dolls. The other girl took the doll just out of reach, but, after a few moments, reluctantly delivered the doll into the younger girl's arms.

Suddenly, the boy saw the blonde's shoulders tense up. She looked shrewdly around, and one pair of dark eyes met another. Her mouth was slightly parted, but before she had a chance to say anything, the boy was off and running, his oversized coat flapping behind him. He was already going to be late.

The boy walked into the house softly, hoping to steal up to his room and get away with pretending he had been home for a while.

"Severus? Is that you coming in?" a woman's voice called out. Caught.

The boy replied with a reluctant, "Yes Mum," while thinking resentfully, 'and if you weren't such a coward and dad wasn't a pessimistic control freak, you would not only know it was me walking in the door, but who was walking in the door of every single house within a fifty mile radius.' But of course, in the small little dilapidated house on Spinner's End, that was forbidden.

Severus Snape walked warily into the small, sparsely decorated room where his mother sat, slowly rocking back and forth on a decrepit old rocking chair. It was probably the most valuable thing in the room, even including the old, broken telly, which his father was currently watching from his perch on the under-stuffed grey sofa.

"See, Tobias, I told you it would be fine".

"He's late."

"Only by a few minutes."

Severus waited for the ranting and the raging, but it never came. His father must not have gone into the pub today.

"Be away with you," grunted his father as he gestured his hand towards the doorway, never taking his eyes from the telly. Severus glanced at his mother, who gave him a look of relief in return, before leaving the room and making the climb up the stairs to his own room.

Severus sank blissfully onto his bed, deeply thankful that the explosive scene he had been imagining the entire way home had not come to be. He glanced distastefully around the room that held little more than a pile of oddly shaped rocks and a stained kite with a missing tail that had never been used, and as his eyes found nothing of interest to him at the moment, he turned to stare at the ceiling and pulled a distastefully ugly pink and green afghan over his body.

As he gazed upwards, he thought of the two girls he had seen playing outside the house near the park. His father may force his mum to keep him in the dark about much of the Wizarding world before he attended Hogwarts, but he got information from his uncle. Severus knew that although the area they lived in was a Muggle neighborhood, it was populated by many witches and wizards who preferred a small magical community to all-wizard villages. Severus would have bet his own life that his father was not aware of this fact. He was aware of this fact, and he was still never quite able to discern which houses were magical and which were non-magical. Of course, that was probably a good thing, since if he were able to, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement would probably have its hands much more full.

He wondered if the girls had been young witches or only Muggles. Perhaps he would venture past their house again tomorrow, just to see if he could figure it out...

Severus did indeed meander past the two young girls' house often after his many trips to the park. However, he never spotted anything out of the ordinary. The girls seemed to be normal Muggles. Severus shivered at the thought of possessing no magical ability. How dull life would be then… How dull life was now, even when he did have the ability… He told himself that it was because of the dullness in his life that his walks to play in the park had become more and more frequent, even as he watched the little redheaded girl shout and leap around her yard. Her hair spun wildly and caught the bright summer rays of the sun so that she looked like a dancing flame.

One day he arrived home to find that his Uncle Boros had come on a rare visit. Uncle Boros and Severus' mother sat together on the couch, chatting amicably, while Severus' father sat still and silent in the rocking chair, straining to catch mention of anything magical in the conversation. If the moment ever came, Severus knew from experience that his father would rise up shaking with rage and authoritatively demand that Boros be removed from his house.

Of course, Uncle Boros never stood for his brother-in-law's bullying, and he would simply Stun the man and continue on visiting with his sister and nephew like nothing had happened. Then his sister would glance at her husband, anxiously and often, until finally Uncle Boros would say with a sigh, "Eileen, I promise to return him back to full strength and wipe his memory of being Stunned. I know he would only take it out on you if I didn't." Then his mother would relax and everything would continue on until Uncle Boros set everything straight and left.

This pattern had kept up for as long as Severus could remember, due to his father's overzealous distaste for anything relating to the Wizarding world.
Severus, though he was very young, was a very shrewd boy, and he suspected that his father's abhorrence for anything magical stemmed from a desire to retain control over everyone and everything. Severus assumed that when his father had discovered that there was a whole race of people who could easily overcome him with nothing more than a long, thin piece of wood in their hands, he had done everything he could to eliminate that threat by forcing it from his home, therefore retaining some semblance of absolute control and authority.

Severus had also gathered that the only reason he was going to be allowed to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was because Uncle Boros was not about to let some measly Muggle detain a descendant of the Prince line from his or her magical education, and he had made sure that his sister's husband knew it. Severus' mother never would have stood up to his father so that he could receive his instruction at Hogwarts, and though he deeply loved his mother, he resented her for that fact. There was nothing in the world that he wanted more than a wand and the knowledge to use it.

Suddenly, Severus' thoughts were interrupted by the mad rantings of his father. Severus deduced that his uncle had once again mentioned Hogwarts, due to the fact that his father was yelling, "I swear, if that boy comes home from there and uses his wand in this house, there will be a price to pay! I won't stand for it! I was tricked into marrying a witch and I won't let my boy become a monstrous little warlo—"

"STUPEFY!" Severus' father fell to the ground, silent. Eileen gazed with pursed lips upon her husband's limp body, and Uncle Boros said to her, "You know, Eileen, I don't understand why you married the filthy Muggle in the first place. And I really don't understand why you don't just follow my example when he gets that way with you," Uncle Boros stated, shaking his head impatiently at his sister's lack of initiative.

"I…I thought Tobias would understand. I didn't know he would mind so much that I was… that I was different. And I never was a remarkable witch, so giving up magic when he's around doesn't make much of a difference to me…" Eileen Prince Snape replied hesitantly. Uncle Boros shook his head.

"Well you shouldn't have expected an insignificant Muggle to understand our kind, Eileen," he said softly. "And that line about you never being a remarkable witch is a load of rubbish and you know it. Who is the witch who was constantly winning awards for her outstanding progress in potions?" Eileen just looked away.

"Even if you don't want to admit it," Uncle Boros continued, unfazed by his sister's reluctance to continue the conversation, "you were remarkable. We can only hope that Severus here inherited your talent for potions, and not mine." Boros turned toward Severus and winked. Severus smiled excitedly back. It always was a good day when Uncle Boros came to visit.

"Boros, I'm sorry, but I think it would be best if you left now. I'll handle Tobias," Eileen said softly as her gaze went once more to her husband.

"All right then. I'll just gather up Severus here and take him for a quick walk, and I'll be out of your way," Boros said, grabbing Severus by the hand and leading him out of the house, and the two were walking swiftly down the rundown walkway and on to the street before either of his parents could recover enough to do anything about it.

"A Muggle," Uncle Boros muttered. "Don't ever get involved with Muggles, Severus. Sure, they're humans, like us, but they're just not up to our level, you know?"

Severus, though not quite sure what his uncle was getting at, nodded anyways, because he knew that was what his uncle wanted to see.

"Right. You'll be a bloody good wizard if I have anything to say about it," Boros said decidedly as he looked Severus up and down. "You've all ready got the look of one about you." Though his voice faltered as his gaze fell upon the ratty black coat. "Don't the kids tease you about that?" his Uncle asked bluntly, though Severus didn't mind.

"Yes, but you know they'd tease me more if I took it off," Severus replied matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, Muggle kids, especially the boys, can be even worse than the adults sometimes," Boros stated. "It's best even to stay away from the Muggleborns when you get to school. Well, real school." Severus nodded his head in understanding. He only attended primary school so that his father could persuade himself into thinking that he still had some air of control over his child's life, but once he got his owl from Hogwarts, he would leave that world behind. He would no longer be an outcast, but he would be with others like him, and he had been planning to make the most of it from the first time he was bullied by one of the Muggle children.

As they walked along, Severus' thoughts wandered once more to the little redheaded girl. She was a Muggle. According to his uncle, it was in his best interest to stay away from her, but surely it wouldn't be a problem if he were only near her, and not interacting directly with her.

"Well, I'll leave you here now," Uncle Boros said suddenly. "Remember what I said, and I'll try and see if I can manage to scrape up another Quidditch poster for you, all right?" Uncle Boros crouched down on his knees in order to give his nephew a hug goodbye.

"Bye, Uncle Boros," Severus said sadly. It was always a burden to say good-bye to his uncle and return to his dreary home.

"See you later, Sev," Uncle Boros said, smiling down on his sister's son, and with a loud pop, he was gone.

The summer flew by quickly, but not quickly enough for Severus Snape. Yes, he was teased and labeled an outcast at the Muggle primary school he attended, but at least there he could position himself in a lonely corner of the schoolyard or classroom and, for the most part, fade out from the consciousness of the other children. There at school, away from everyone else, he could also escape the melancholy atmosphere of his home, too. When summer came, and school was out of session, Severus had to deal with spending more time than usual at his less-than-happy home. Thus, Severus was almost glad to be returning to the Muggle school.

Severus sighed deeply one day as he plodded along the sidewalk. His father had been going through one of his phases where he was in a good mood; meaning soon he would return to being brooding and moody. Severus was wondering if today would be the day his father would snap back into his regular character and resume making life miserable for him and his mother, as he claimed his mother had done to him when she married him without revealing that she was a witch.
Suddenly, all thoughts of his father flew from his mind, as he saw the little red-haired girl walking just ahead of him. He didn't know where she went to school, but she was with her sister and they both were carrying light-looking lunch pails, as if they were just arriving home, too. He watched them out of the corner of his eye as they entered their house with exclamations of joy when their mother arrived at the door with a batch of fresh baked cookies in a jar that she held out for them. Severus looked away quickly and wondered what it would be like to have a family like that.

Soon, Severus was once more walking up the overgrown walkway that led to his house, already filled with dread. By now he could hear his father raging. Yes, today was the day things would go back to "normal". Severus became more and more angry with each step that he took; angry that he had to live like this, angry that he and his mother were subjected to his repulsive, bitter father, and angry that he had gotten stuck with the kind of father who was repulsive and bitter.

Impulsively he threw his school things into a nearby bush and ran towards the park that had become a place of comfort to him over the summer. Once he arrived, he collapsed on the ground. Angrily he tore out fistfuls of grass, throwing them violently into the shrubs surrounding him as he determinedly held back the moisture that was gathering in his eyes.

He had lain in the park for a while, and now the sun had long ago begun its descent. Unwillingly, Severus gathered himself up off of the grass and started home. The thought of what awaited him there put him in an even worse state of mind. He could never be sure what his father's reaction would be.

As he passed the now familiar looking house, he saw the girl outside, playing with her dog. She laughed and laughed as she ran back and forth across the yard with her companion.

Severus thought bitterly, 'What's a few more minutes? I'm already in for it when I get home.' At this, he settled down behind a light pole near the end of the street, and he watched her silently, envying her.

After a few minutes, the door to the house opened and her mother came out, followed by a girl with dark, reddish-brown hair who was even smaller than the two other girls Severus was used to seeing.

"Lily! Lily, come inside and finish your homework! You don't have that much to do!" the mother called out as she waved a few sheets of paper in her hand.

'Lily.' So that was the redheaded girl's name. 'It suits her,' Severus decided.
Lily wasn't paying any attention to her mother, still galloping around the yard with the dog.

"Lily! Come inside this instant!" At this, Lily stopped immediately and looked towards her mother, frowning.

"Aw, but Mum! I'm having fun! Can't it just wait a little longer?" Lily exclaimed unhappily.

"No, Lily! I won't allow you to slack off at the beginning of the year like I've done before! School is only going to get more and more difficult." The dark-haired girl clung to the back of her mother's knee and gazed at her older sister admiringly, but with a look on her face that seemed to communicate, "Lily, you'd better do what Mummy says…!"

"I don't want to," Lily said boldly. She crossed her arms and stared defiantly at her mother.

"Lily Marie Evans!" warned her mother. Lily only turned her glare towards the sheets of paper in her mother's hand. Suddenly, a strong breeze swept through the yard, catching Mrs. Evans off her guard, and it easily tugged the papers from her hand and sent them flying high into the sky. The young dark-haired girl followed the breeze-scattered sheets with wide eyes, and Mrs. Evans frowned perplexedly up at the retreating pages of homework her daughter was so reluctant to complete.

"Oh no," she sighed exasperatedly. "I'll just have to send a note with you tomorrow explaining what happened. I don't know how these things always happen to your homework, Lily…" She trailed off, wondering why it was that such things always seemed to happen to her daughter's benefit. "Well now, you just march on inside, this instant!" she said, once again the firm mother.

Lily flounced poutily into the house, followed by the brown dog, and the door shut firmly behind them.

Severus got up excitedly from his spot next to the light pole. That breeze was no coincidence; he was sure of it. It was just the kind of uncontrolled magic that a young witch or wizard exhibited. And Mrs. Evan's words flitted through his mind… 'I don't know how these things always happen to your homework, Lily…'
Yes, the girl was a witch! She wasn't a worthless Muggle, she was a witch! Severus was sure of it. Well, almost sure. He would continue to watch her, just to be safe of course, lest he do something stupid and reveal the magical world to someone who would never encounter it… Yes, he would wait, and watch.
He arrived home in good time, his pace accelerated by the jubilation brought on by his discovery.

His mood only improved when his mother gave him a warm smile as he walked in the house, and his father merely looked at him and said, "Well, up to your room, Severus." Severus did as he was told, and he jumped onto his lumpy bed with the ugly pink and green afghan, thinking of all the possibilities.

Maybe this girl could be his first real friend who would share his magical abilities. Maybe they would be in the same house at Hogwarts together! Maybe…
But wait, if the girl really was a witch, she was surely a Muggleborn. After all, her mother had not yet recognized the magical signs in her daughter, and Uncle Boros had said that it would be best if he stayed away from Muggleborns as well as Muggles. But surely an exception could be made for the little girl with brilliant red hair…

A/N: I've gone through and done my major re-editing, and this is the result for this chapter. :) There really wasn't too much to do with this one, most of the huge mistakes are in the later chapters...

And btw, I would really love to hear your opinions, please! I'm interested to see how people respond to my writing (The idea of publishing a book in the future interests me), so I would really appreciate it if you would review!!! Thanks!