Prolouge:

Curiosity Revived the Cat


Darkness enveloped him, surrounding him in a blanket of nothingness. He felt himself falling, but he had no idea for how long. His entire body felt numb, as if he had bathed in sub-zero waters for hours on end. So was this what death felt like? A vague memory told him no, that he had died before and something else had happened.

Suddenly, it felt like he had a hit a wall. All of his movement had stopped, leaving him floating in the blank space. Seconds later, a bright light appeared in front of him. It was barely even the size of a period -if even that- and was probably kilometers away. Did sizes and distances even exist in this dimension?

The strange light in the otherwise pitch black area proved too much for his curiosity to resist. He floated towards the light, but it didn't seem to get any closer. Instead, the pulsing light appeared to actually get farther away the more he swam towards it.

He wouldn't be beaten by a little light. He moved forward, increasing his speed. At least, he thought he was. It was quite hard to tell. Finally, the light seemed to actually be getting closer. He surged forward, reaching his arm out -he could see his arm!- and, with a cry of triumph, brushed his fingers against the light.

The light filled the entire space, so bright that even shadows fled. His eyes closed at the the intensity. Had he not, the light probably would have burned his eyes straight out of his sockets in seconds. Even behind his eyelids, it was still like staring directly into the sun.

When he opened his eyes, he was staring up at a woman. He noticed that he seemed to exponentially smaller than he had last been, but also that the woman was holding him. She had a tender look in her eyes, and placed a kiss atop his forehead.

"Hello, Severus," She said. "You will become a wonderful wizard that will make the Snape name proud." Severus? Last he recalled, he had been called something else.

Then it dawned on him. He had died, he knew that for sure. He had opened his eyes to a strange woman calling him a strange name. He knew for a fact that he was much smaller. He had been reborn, reborn into a newborn baby.

Itachi Uchiha, the man who killed his entire clan to protect his village, had been reborn as Severus Snape.

To most people, having a second chance at life would have been a dream come true. However, to Itachi it was more or less annoying. He had already been disturbed in death when Kabuto had used the Edo Tensei to reanimate him along with dozens of others.

After defeating Kabuto and breaking the Edo Tensei, Itachi had looked forward to being able to rest in piece. Itachi normally didn't believe in fate, but he was sure that someone or something out there was against him. Couldn't he rest in piece, or was this karma getting back at him,

Though slightly displeased at first, Itachi -or was it Severus now?- decided to make the most of this new life. Due to being a baby, his parents would also talk about things that they normally wouldn't talk about in front of him otherwise. Most of the time they seemed to argue about something called "Magic".

Apparently his mother was a witch, someone who could harness magic. His father, however, could not use magic, making him a "Muggle" if Severus understood his mother correctly. Because of this, Severus was a "Half-Blood", someone who had one magical parent and one muggle parent.

At first his memories of his previous life were fuzzy at best, as he was only able to clearly remember a few things such as his name. However, as he continued to grow older, his memories of Itachi began to grow clearer. Now he could remember his days as a ninja of Konohagakure, his days as an ANBU, and his mission to eliminate his entire clan.

As he grew, he found himself being more and more ignored by his father and mother. His father seemed to hate magic, and did all he could to punish Severus. Severus's mother seemed to not care about him since he wasn't shooting powerful accidental magic left and right.

He remembered the first accidental magic he had performed was simply making a spoon fly into his hand. His fathers eyes had nearly popped out of his head, and the vein above his left eye had throbbed dangerously. Severus had spent the rest of the month in his room, although he had still snuck out against his father's orders.

His parents also frequently shouted at each other, usually when Severus did do some accidental magic, like making water in a cup disappear or making shoes wobbily float in the air. Severus often found himself sitting in his room, wondering it would be like when he finally went to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizadry.

Whenever his father was away, he voiced these thoughts to his mother. But she didn't really pay any attention to him. Severus briefly wondered if this was how Naruto had felt during his childhood days. He also wondered if the vessel of the Nine-Tails had beaten Madara. Probably, the boy had tons of determination and was harder to kill than a cockroach.

Because of his parents, Severus often walked around the neighborhood, noticing how ignorant Muggles were of the magical world. Many times they would see things clearly of magical origin, and yet they would brush it off as a fluke of science or something of the like.

However, Severus was curious. He wanted to figure out how magic worked; after all ,you cannot create something from nothing. And once he got to Hogwarts, he would start trying to unwrap the mysteries of magic. Until then, he would have to endure his parents constant shouting.

And ever since he had turned nine, his parents seemed to fight more and more. He could rarely be in the house without the two breaking into an argument, like a couple of children fighting over a toy. Hmm, did that analogy still work even though that he too was a child.

One thing that he had been wishing for ever since being born into this life was a single friend. However, most kids found him to look creepy, like an "oversized bat". Severus sighed as he heard his parents had started their pre-brunch fight. Maybe he would go take a walk down the street to that park and see if that strange redheaded girl was there, perhaps this time he would actually talk to her about her abilities.