Author's note:

Dear readers,

another update for you, in which you will meet Sage Prince. I hope that you enjoy reading my story. Your reviews are as always appreciated.

Best wishes,

Vani12

Chapter 2 - A new life

Luxury apartment, London, January 2000

Sage Prince stood in his luxury furnished in the latest style apartment in front of his floor-to-ceiling windows sipping slowly on his bourbon whiskey, enjoying his rich spicy-sweet fruit flavor underlined by a layer of caramel and vanilla and looking with his piercing onyx-black eyes over the busy London traffic. He couldn't believe how much his life had changed in the last two years. He felt reborn like a new person, although his old demons and vices constantly haunted him in his nightmares. He wasn't able to forget the faces of the dead, injured, tortured, disfigured, traumatized or orphaned witches and wizards or Muggles. His immense survivors-guilt, regrets and guilt for his despicable inhumane deeds as a Death Eater didn't let him close his eyes at night. He was addicted to a light self-developed and only with his genetics in mind composed sleeping potion that covered the faces of his victims and the people he hadn't bee able to save like a soft blanket and let him function daily. Every time he read about a war orphan without any support who missed his parents terribly, a widowed mother of tree without the income of her deceased husband who couldn't pay her bills or a crippled warrior without a job who tried to numb his pain and despair with alcohol in the newspapers, he felt an overwhelming guilt for his past actions, his new life in luxury and his booming potions company "The Prince's Perfect Potions". In these moments, he wasn't able to face a mirror and wished that he had died in the war too. If these innocent good people with pure hearts had to suffer, why did an old cruel bastard like him with a dark soul deserve a second chance? Why did he, who had tormented or killed Muggles for fun or to gain the favor of the madman Tom Riddle in his youth, who had betrayed the love of his life Lily Evans to be accepted and gain more power or who had poisoned many promising witches and wizards as well as their children with his deadly self-invented cure-, odor- and colorless potions, get a fresh start? He had not only been a sadistic inhumane monster in his youth, but he had also felt no regrets for reducing a student to tears, mocking a failed potions brewer in front of a whole class or bullying the boy wonder of the wizarding world Harry Potter as a teacher.

After many therapy sessions with a Muggle psychologist, he had realized that the death of the love of his life Lily Evans, his only friend and light in a sea full of darkness, that he had set off with his disclosure of the prophecy to the Dark Lord had frozen his feelings. The pain, the guilt, the regret and the despair about her death had been too much for his mind and his heart to handle, so that he had collapsed, hidden his feelings behind a mask of cold indifference and cruelty thanks to his superb Occlumency abilities and isolated himself from the world. His soul had died with her and the only thing he had wanted to achieve in his remaining miserable life had been to destroy her murderer and the tormentor of the wizarding world Lord Voldemort and to help her son Harry Potter to free the magical world of his reign of darkness, terror, and death. In retrospective, he realized that Lily Evans had not been his one true love, but a bigger than life itself idealized illusion. Since he had met her as a child, connected to her through their shared magical abilities and experienced her kindness, Severus had been obsessed with his illusory dream of marrying her, fathering her children and growing old with her. He had wanted to have it all. A beautiful, friendly and talented witch as a wife, an innocent, well-cared for and beloved baby as a child, a successful, for her world-changing inventions and excellent research department renowned, apothecary as a business and a big, beautiful and stylishly furnished villa as a family house. His dreams had gotten more delusional and surreal the darker his reality became.

Severus had faded out that Lily wasn't in love with him, that his fascination for the Dark Arts had destroyed any friendship between them or that he had sold his soul to the devil in his blind search for fame, money, and power. As a Death Eater, he had been the unfree dark agent of a madman, who had persecuted, tortured or killed every Muggle, Muggle-born, blood-traitor or squib that this madman had put on a death-list. He had fought against everything Lily stood for. Her Muggle heritage, her magical genius despite being muggle-born, her compassion for other magical creatures and her dream of a united, equal and non-violent magical world. Nowadays, Severus couldn't understand why he had joined the Death Eaters and believed that they would fulfill his dreams. Sure, Severus had been an abused, neglected and love-hungry boy from a failed violent and loveless marriage between a Muggle and a witch who had to suffer in silence and alone from the physical and verbal abuse of his alcoholic, magic-hating and sadistic father Tobias and to see his worthless father beating his beautiful, magically gifted pure-blood mother Eileen into submission and abandoning her magical heritage.

But other wizards or witches had gone through similar childhood traumas without becoming an ice-cold killer. Moreover, he had grown up in poverty, hadn't been able to afford decent clothes, food or hygiene products and had been bullied mercilessly at Hogwarts by the Marauders for being a gloomy ugly Slytherin or by his Slytherin peers for being an intelligent magically talented and arrogant half-blood. But not every victim of bullying - and Severus had even tried to avenge himself through his own acts of bullying - with a poor family background joined an inhumane struggling for world domination gang to feel admired and appreciated. Severus had tried to come to terms with his bad decisions in his former life and move on, even if his vices would chase him every remaining day of his new life.

Severus had tried to redeem himself by donating money to a war orphans and widows fund, by building a modern orphanage with passionate friendly and affectionate nurses or by developing many new potions and remedies. Although the wizarding world wasn't aware that Severus Snape was in truth the mysterious handsome, wealthy and socially committed magical potions genius Sage Prince. They thankfully believed in his death as a heroic spy for Dumbledore during the Finale Battle. They hailed him as a tragic hero who became a spy and fought for the Light in memory of his unrequited true love Lily Evans Potter. Severus despised this romanticized version of himself. Nowadays, he had demasked his love as an obsession, fought every day with his demons and had worked out that he had joined the Light not only to rescue Lily but also to save his worthless self and find a nearly scot-free way out of the Death Eaters.

Because he had noticed early on in December 1979, about a year after he had taken the Dark Mark, that he wanted to get out. He hadn't been able to fulfill his dreams of fame, power and wealth as a Death Eater. Sure, in the beginning, he had felt that his potions genius and outstanding magical potential in dueling had been acknowledged and supported for the first time, for the Dark Lord had sponsored his magical Potions Mastery, hired him as his chief potioner and let him teach his colleagues about his new self-developed duel spells. But as the first amazement about being powerful enough to torture Muggles or brew deadly cureless poisons had vanished, Severus had recognized with horror that he was an unfree lackey to a madman who committed crimes in the name of an ideology - the ruling of the purebloods in the wizarding world - he didn't believe in and that he had let himself be consumed by his inner darkness.

He had desperately searched for a way out, but he had known that his only options were death or flight like a coward. Thus, he had distanced himself inwardly from his Death Eater personality, had cut out the faces of the innocents who were murdered by his poisons and curses and had accomplished every mission of his master to his satisfaction, because he hadn't wanted to be killed or tortured into madness by him. He had been a wicked, selfish, immoral coward who acted without thinking and only the prospect of losing his obsession Lily Evans Potter to death had brought him out of his shell and let him risk everything. Although, he had only risked everything in the belief that Dumbledore wouldn't kill him or throw him into Azkaban because he had been aware that he could be valuable to him as a spy amid the Death Eaters and had been destined to be turned into a spy. That had been his only, albeit risky scot-free way out of the Death Eaters and his only chance to redeem himself. So, Severus had agreed to be a spy for the Light and to fight Voldemort until his death.

After Lily's death, his fight against Voldemort had been solely fueled by his thirst to avenge her. And he had wanted his pitiful existence to end in the Shrieking Shack by being sliced open by Nagini's poisonous sharp teeth. He had suspected that Voldemort would dispose of him in the end and known that Nagini was one of his favorite weapons to kill his enemies. Therefore, he could have brewed and taken an anti-venom for her poison, carried Blood Replenishing Potions, phoenix tears or Healing Potions on his person or put himself into a magical, loss of blood stopping, coma. But he had wanted to die on May 2nd, 1998 and to escape his unfortunate sad life, so he hadn't taken any precautions. After he had transferred his memories to Harry, fulfilled his last mission and had looked for the last time in Lily's emerald green eyes, he had put his life behind himself and welcomed the afterlife. But unfortunately, fate had prevented his death by an unusual magical miracle.

Instead of waking up in the afterlife, Severus awoke in a strange dream-like dimension. A younger, more beautiful and happier version of his mother had greeted him with open arms and told him that fate would give him a second chance. He would wake up in an hour near her old parental house, Prince Cottage, in Cornwall and could make a clean start, because he wouldn't wake up as the sour despised Potions Master, former Death Eater and murderer of Albus Dumbledore Severus Snape, but as a twenty-years-old innocent and unmarked version of himself Sage Prince. He would be the heir to the immense Prince fortune, the heir to their successful potions company "The Prince's Perfect Potions" that was now managed by a trust fund and a renowned magical potions genius with a Mastery in Potions who had been educated in the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft Wizardry in the USA and apprenticed under the renowned Potions Master Daniel Goldstein. Naturally, his educational records would be verified by magically appearing documents. His identity would be verified by his newly created birth certificate that revealed his birthday on May 3rd, 1977 in Boston and identified his biological parents as Tiberius Prince, Eileen's elder brother, who had died in November 1976 of a brain tumor, and Jasmin Devereaux, his secret American fiancee, who had left Britain broken-hearted and pregnant after his death, raised her beloved son with the help of her parents in Boston and had tragically died of breast cancer in January 1998, but not before informing him about his true heritage.

From there, Sage would seek his roots in Britain, discover his heritage and claim his legacy by appearing in Prince Cottage, proofing his blood relations to the Princes and inheriting their wealth, company and real estates as the rightful sole heir after an identity-affirming and property-transferring trip to Gringotts. As Sage Prince, Severus would be able to redeem his acts as a Death Eater by researching new healing potions and remedies and donating a large amount of his wealth. But above all, he would have a new chance to find true love and happiness. Severus had been overwhelmed by these life-changing revelations from his mother, but before he had been able to ask her further questions and still his curiosity as to why of all people got this wonderful second chance, he had woken up in his de-aged body outside the fields of Prince Cottage and his new life as Sage Prince had begun.

Over the past two years, Severus had put all his energies, efforts and passions in the research and invention of new healing potions with a competent team of potioneers, herbologists, and arithmetics and had helped to rebuild the wizarding world. But his new identity as Sage Prince could not wash away his sins and experiences as Severus Snape so that he was still a suspicious lonely man who appreciated to be left alone. Sure, he worked in his psychological therapy lessons on his issues and tried to be more open to other people, but at his core, he was still an unfortunate albeit a rich and young man who was haunted by his past and longed for happiness and love. With his new improved looks – his shortened shiny midnight-black hair, his straight, royal and unbroken nose, his luscious soft lips, his noble masculine facial features, his straight whitened teeth and his well-toned body - new expensive clothes - mostly black or navy blue suits, shirts and dark jeans -, his new boyish charms and prosperity, he was the dream of many witches. But he only engaged in short-lived affairs and one-night stands, for he was too scared of opening up completely to another person and getting his heart broken again. Lately, he had decided to get rid of his insecurities and excuses and start looking for love with an open mind. Today he would try his luck in a new popular pub in Diagon Alley. Hopefully, Armor's arrow would hit him there.