Part I
Chapter 1
It was nearly the end of his fourth year at Hogwarts when Severus Snape first met Griselda Yewmarsh. True, they had been in the same House ever since she had arrived a year after him, but they never really spoke till the day that he saw her in the corridor, wand out, facing a couple of fifth year prefects from Gryffindor. A Hufflepuff girl, probably first year, leaned against the wall nearby, looking dazed.
"Don't think we'll buy that story, Yewmarsh," one of the prefects, a tall boy, was saying. "All the prefects know that you've been getting into fights all year. And you know there's no magic in the corridors. Slytherins think it's funny to jinx first years between classes, now?"
Snape gritted his sharp teeth – Gryffindors, so unfair, it was classic – and approached. The girl – Yewmarsh – was short, plump, with long dark hair. The green Slytherin badge was visible on the bag she had slung across her back. Her hand clutched her wand so tightly it shook a little.
"I didn't jinx anyone," she snapped. "Peeves was going to trip her, she was going to fall down the stairs, I just stopped him."
"By what, shoving her yourself?" scoffed the other prefect. "Nice try. I don't see Peeves anywhere around here."
The girl's face was red. "He zoomed off," she muttered.
"But you did shove her?" the prefect asked sharply.
"I… I grabbed her. And pulled her away from the staircase."
"Right. Did you by any chance use a jinx to 'pull her away from the staircase'? And maybe toss her across the hall in the process?"
"No! She's just… heavy, and I'm short," Yewmarsh protested. "I fell, and she fell, and … she smacked her head on the floor."
The prefects looked at one another skeptically. "But she's only a first year," one said, looking at the Hufflepuff. "How heavy can she be, really?"
"Not heavier than you," said the other, snidely. "And here you are, wand in hand… I think we're going to have to report this."
Snape stepped up, a little behind the Slytherin girl. "I should think you would talk to the so-called victim before you go accusing people to the teachers," he shot at them. The girl, though, spun sharply to face him, wand ready, before backing away at angle from both him and the prefects.
"Don't go anywhere," one prefect warned her. "Who are you then?" he asked Snape.
"Oh, that's Snape," said the other, before he could reply. "He's that little fourth year who's always picking a fight with Potter and Black, you know?"
Snape stared at them coldly and didn't bother responding. "Look," he said, pointing, as the Hufflepuff girl stood up, a hand on her head.
"All right, there?" one of the prefects asked her. "What happened here?"
"I don't know," she said, rubbing her head. "I was running to class, and something grabbed me from behind… It was pretty fast. I bumped my head, I think."
"Did you see Peeves anywhere around before you were grabbed?" asked the prefect, glancing sideways at Yewmarsh.
"No…"
"He was hiding," exclaimed Yewmarsh. "I saw him, behind that statue over there. And I saw him do the same thing to somebody else last week, I knew what was going to happen!"
The prefects looked disbelieving, but Snape stepped in, asking the Hufflepuff, "Did you see this girl anywhere around?"
"What? No, I didn't see her either…."
"Looks like no witnesses for reporting anything then," Snape said coolly to the prefects. "Time to drop it maybe."
The Hufflepuff girl, looking confused, glanced at a clock on the wall and looked dismayed. "Oh, I'm so late for Charms!" she said.
The prefects shrugged at one another, and said, "Come along, we'll excuse you to Flitwick, if you're sure you don't need to go to the hospital wing." When she shook her head, they started off. "Better get to class, Slytherins," one said over his shoulder at them. "You might lose your house some points otherwise."
Of course, don't offer to excuse us for being late, thought Snape, watching them go. He looked at Yewmarsh, who was standing with her back to a window, looking relieved, but still holding up her wand. "Don't you have a pocket for that thing?" he asked wryly.
She looked surprised. "Sure." She lowered her wand, but did not put it away. "Um… thanks."
"Yeah, well… we Slytherins have to stick together," said Snape, shifting his armful of books, and preparing to go to class.
"Yeah," she said, eyes on him, still looking faintly puzzled, and giving no sign that she would be going anywhere.
"You probably shouldn't stick around here, just in case they come back," he said, pointedly. It wouldn't do to give Gryffindor prefects any excuse to take points from Slytherin. "Aren't you going to class?"
She looked away from him at last, and finally stuffed her wand into her robes. "No," she said shortly.
Snape's eyebrows went up. He didn't usually skive off lessons, himself. "Oh. Common room, then?"
Some expression, he wasn't sure exactly what, passed quickly across her face, and she shook her head. "No. Too… crowded."
Snape was surprised. He loved the Slytherin common room, so cool and dark, shadowy suggestions of fish and other things in the water outside the windows. It never seemed crowded to him.
He was about to turn away when she spoke again. "I think I'll go outside, down by the lake. Would you… want to come with?"
He looked at her, considering. It was late, the lesson was almost half over, and it was only Defense Against the Dark Arts for him, which was tiresome since he'd done all the reading, and besides already knew every curse they were learning about right now. He could ask Avery for the assignments. And after this was lunch and he'd be seeing Lily, maybe even outside; she loved to eat out in the sun…. It might be pleasant to sit by the lake and work on his personal spells. If this Yewmarsh didn't talk too much.
"All right, then," he said. "As long as there's some shade. I don't like too much sun."
"Sure," she said, and offered, "I'm Griselda Yewmarsh."
"Severus Snape," he said. She didn't offer to shake hands or anything, so neither did he. They walked down the steps in silence and snuck out the front doors toward the lake.
#
Snape walked straight to a group of trees near the lake's edge and settled himself in the deepest shade he could find. Just because he could walk about in the sun as much as he liked (unlike his rotten, half-vampire father) didn't mean he wanted to. He always felt squinty and over-warm in direct sunlight, even mild springtime sun. He took out his mother's old potions book and notes directly and began reading over the last things he had written.
The girl, Yewmarsh, walked over to the edge of the lake and crouched there for a little while, trailing a hand in the water. After a few minutes she took out her wand and came over under the trees where Snape sat, sitting down with her back against the trunk of one of the trees, facing him, but a few feet away. He sighed, expecting that she would begin talking at him at any moment, but they sat for at least ten minutes in silence. She merely stared off over the water, turning her wand absently in her fingers, while he scratched a few notes with a quill and waited to be interrupted. She was the one who'd invited him out here… but she continued to say nothing.
Finally, he closed his book and said, "So… your wand."
"What?" Her head turned quickly toward him, and her fingers closed tightly over it. "What about it?"
"You're attached to it," he said, dryly. "What kind?"
"Rowan," she said.
"Hmm," he replied. "Mine's birch." He reached to bring it out and show her, and saw that she quickly shifted her sitting, almost to a crouching position. "Merlin's beard, you're jumpy," he said, but pulled his wand out more slowly and held it up. "See?" His was a silvery gray, compared to hers, a golden-brown with a twisting carved design for a handle.
She nodded, and sat down again, leaves crackling. "Nice," she offered, still watching him carefully.
"Sure," he said casually, and waved his wand, saying, "Cuir-snaidhmair." A long string of multi-colored smoke emerged from its tip, and began to weave itself into complicated knots and patterns in the air before them.
"Wow," Yewmarsh said, rapt. "I've never seen that spell before."
"Deletrius," he said, and the smoke turned gray and dissipated into the sunshine above them. "It's not much use," he said dismissively, "but I invented it for… a friend."
"Do you invent a lot of your own spells, too?" she asked.
Too? Snape thought, but answered only, shortly, "Yes." He expected she would go on, tell him all about her little charms, or talk about how we're so alike, isn't it amazing, and why on earth did I come out here anyway? he wondered.
But again, silence for a few minutes, only the sound of the lake water on the shore, and a few birds in the trees over their heads. A breeze tossed the tree branches above them and let a few rays of sun through, and Snape huddled down into his robes, gloomily.
"So why don't you like sunshine?" Yewmarsh asked suddenly.
He went very still, but tried to act casual about it. "What?"
"You said you don't like the sun. Why not?"
Snape didn't like the direction of these questions, or how she was watching him. He didn't need that – his whole life as a part-vampire at Hogwarts depended on people not paying too close attention to him, or what he did. He sometimes felt that his life was made up of a series of boxes, or rooms, and as long as the walls of the rooms were kept strong and tight, everything stayed separate and safe. His last close call had been first year, and he didn't intend to repeat anything like it.
"I just don't," he said.
"Is it because you're so pale? Do you sunburn easily or something?"
"Not particularly." This was true, but he immediately thought about backtracking. It would make a good excuse.
"I do," she continued before he could try. "Just like… I mean, I think I got it from my mum, she was very fair." She shifted uncomfortably, then blurted, defiantly, "She was a Muggle."
Snape's eyebrows shot up. In Slytherin, it was an unspoken rule that half-bloods didn't volunteer the information. People usually liked to pretend that, oh yes, we're all purebloods here! Though of course it wasn't true. He could see Yewmarsh watching for his reaction. Well, he could be bold about it too. "So is my father," he said.
She looked surprised. "Really? But… but you know so many spells, you're so good at magic…." She looked away. "I mean, everyone says."
Great, now she was listening to what other people said about him? Who knew what she would ask next. "Did you say was?" he asked. "Your mother…."
"Yeah," she said. "She died. And my brother's a lot older than me, he finished Hogwarts before I even started. It's just me and my father now."
"Oh," he said. "Sorry."
She shrugged. "It was a long time ago. Anyway," she continued, "how about your dad? Do you get on well?"
"Didn't you say you invent your own spells, too?" he said, desperate to divert her – any topic was better than his home life. She blushed a little but nodded. "Why don't you show me one?"
"All right," she mumbled, and looked around. In a low hanging branch nearby was a spider web, where a butterfly was struggling, barely caught. The spider was approaching it from the corner of the web. "Watch," she said. "Duroscuto!" A glowing bubble of light started from the center of the butterfly and expanded around it to about the size of an apple. The spider, touching the side, couldn't seem to get through.
"It's a shield," she said. "It's strong. I cast it around my bed, behind my curtains at night."
"Why would you do that?" he asked, but privately thought it wasn't a bad idea. She only shrugged in response. Snape flicked a tiny pebble at the glowing shield and it bounced off at an angle. "What all have you tested against it?" he asked.
"All the hexes and curses I know," she said. "It lets them out but not in." The butterfly had finally extricated itself from the web, and flew off, the light bubble still centered around it.
"That is really something," said Snape, admiring in spite of himself. "Maybe you could teach that one to me sometime."
She shrugged. "Sometime," she said, but there was a smile on her face for the first time. One corner of her mouth turned up more than the other, but the effect was appealing enough.
Just then, over her shoulder, Snape saw a gleam of red hair in the sunlight, and he craned his neck – Lily was approaching, heading right for the trees. His heart did something funny in his chest (gladness? is this gladness? he thought, but dismissed the question; he didn't really care), and his face must have changed, because Yewmarsh quickly turned to see who was coming, then looked back at Snape again, the smile fading from her face.
"Hey, Sev," said Lily brightly as she came close enough to be heard. "I saw you from the window. Did you really skip—" Just then she saw Yewmarsh, and stopped, cocking her head. "Oh, um, hello." The other girl looked at her in silence. Lily looked to Snape for help.
"Oh. Lily, this is Yewmarsh – um, Griselda Yewmarsh, she's a third year?" He looked at her for confirmation, and she nodded slightly. "In Slytherin. And this is Lily Evans, she's…"
"Your friend," said Yewmarsh, nodding at Lily gravely.
"Nice to meet you, Griselda," said Lily. The younger girl winced a little, but nodded again. "Oh, sorry," said Lily, "I…."
"It's fine," the other girl said. "I just don't care for my given name much. Or my surname for that matter."
"Oh!" said Lily. "What do you prefer?" A shrug. "How about… Selda?"
"I suppose," came the reply. She was staring at the ground.
There was an awkward pause. Lily shot Snape a hinting look, and jerked her head a little toward the other girl. He rolled his eyes, but spoke. "Well, um, Selda," she looked up at him at this, "would you, er, like to come eat with us?"
"Yes, you're welcome," added Lily, smiling warmly at her. "I'm starving, aren't you, Sev?"
Snape nodded, standing and gathering his books and quill from the ground, but Yewmarsh was quicker, jumping to her feet and tucking her wand away quickly. She looked between the two, then said, "No, I'll walk a bit more." Abruptly, she turned away and paced off along the edge of the lake, her small form shrinking as she followed its curve away from the castle.
Lily looked questioningly at Snape, but he just shrugged, and started back for the castle, content to ignore Griselda Yewmarsh's odd behavior in favor of food and the company of his best friend.
