Severus Snape looked at the Potter brat's eyes as he finally breathed his last. He had expected many things after his death, to sleep for eternity in the afterlife, not being hounded by brats but he surely even in his wildest dreams hadn't expected this.
Him being stuck in the body of a newborn baby, the sheer humilation of it. Thankfully he still had his magic but it was very little at the amount. He couldn't understand the words spoken between people at first, even though he knew atleast five languages proficiently. Severus Snape was many things but a fool, he was certainly not. He immediately understood that he was reborn in another world as a baby.
So he played his game carefully and bid his time, his brain was that of a baby so sometimes it clouded over his rational consciousness same with the body, but he learnt everything slowly from his surroundings.
When he finally learnt enough, the first thing which came to his mind was to go and kill himself for saving the trouble. He was born in a medieval world with no wand of his own, the only thing he had were his wits and the knowledge he had. And the worst thing was that he was born as a commoner in a world of nobles. Well it was just like his time in Slytherin as a student, a loner boy among elite purebloods. However this time the stakes were much higher than usual, he had learnt and heard from the other smallfolk about how horrible their lives were and that most of the things they owed to the Lords. Thankfully he was born in an area whose Lord was apparently generous and just.
He was reborn in a village near Wolfswood apparently Winterfell, the castle of House Stark was also near. His new father had died apparently in Robert's Rebellion whereas his mother had died with grief and the toll of childbirth leaving him at the care of his grandfather. Apparently his new name was Edric Snow after his father and grandfather Alric. Snow a name given to bastards of North and apparently his great grandfather was a snow, so their family had taken the name Snow as their title. It didn't mattered much as titles were mostly for Lords here.
Oh he had many complaints about his new life, the greatest complaint of his was about why in the fuck was he in a world which freezed his balls off and this was called summer by the people here. Blasphemy! it was because there was no way that temprature of 45 or 50 Fahrenheit was called summer.
Hell, seasons lasted years here and Severus couldn't understand how this shit happened. He could bitch and moan with every fibre of his body but he knew it that it would not lead him to anything, so he had decided to survive like his previous life.
It had been nearly six years since he was born and lived with his grandfather. His grandfather too had been a soldier or more like a levy like the fellow smallfolk. He had killed some levies and grabbed some swords and weapons as loot after he returned from the Rebellion. His new father had apparently been not lucky as he was killed by the Dornish soldiers in the battle of Ruby Ford where finally the new King Robert Baratheon defeated Rhaegar Targaryen with a warhammer to his chest.
Apparently he had gotten some injuries and he proudly showed his injuries whenever he spoke about his days as a soldier. Since his loot was his to keep, he had three swords in home and two daggers which he had managed to loot from the battlefield. There had been more three swords but he had given them to other levies as he had no need of eight to ten swords.
It was good for Severus as he was able to use the swords for practise. Unlike his previous world, he was not having his wand which meant that he must use all of which he could find here in his favour. Swordmanship was something which needed practise to be developed, people trained for eight to ten years with sword and yet die at the edge of another sword if the other person was more skilled or used tricks.
It was the reason he trained his body. Every morning started with training his body with simple exercises then some running to increase the stamina and then some jumps or skips to practise a little gymnastics during fights. At last some push-ups and sit-ups as much as his near seven year old body could bear. He had seen that his body was better than his previous life, apparently he was more healthy, by the rate of his growth Severus concluded that he will pass six feet in height as his grandfather was near six feet and two to three inches in height and apparently his father was near the same as six feet three. That was way taller than he was in his previous life. He could inprove himself to inhuman capacities by the help of rituals which he remembered still during his time with the Dark Lord but most of them needed human sacrifices and though it was tempting, he had kept them as an option at his list. Too much power corrupted the mind and he had first had seen its effects in both Dumbledore and the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord had became a shell of his former shell and Dumbledore himself had shown many times power getting up in his head.
His grandfather was respected in the small village because of his term as a veteran soldier. They had a little cottage made up of wood in which they resided. His grandfather hunted and farmed along with the other villagers leaving him mostly to his own devices like the other people. Severus was overjoyed at such opportunity, he practised his little bit wandless magic at those moment as well a subject in which he was becoming incredibly skilled which was that of skinchanging or warging.
The tales of wargs and greenseers were popular in the North and many smallfolk themselves believed that it was true. He had been told their stories while growing up. Severus had been skeptical at first but nonetheless decided to learn more about it.
He had caught a squirrel with some traps which he had made and used a little legilimency on it. Unlike in his previous world where the legilimency would have given him just the feelings of the squirell, this time he was inside the mind of squirrel. He could feel, sense and hear everything the squirell could do. However the instincts of the animal also tried to influence his mind which he could detect instantly. It was the reason he broke the connection quickly as he understood one thing.
His incredible prowess with occlumency helped him greatly in skinchanging but the bigger or fiercer the animal, the more is a chance that its instincts would try to influence him stronger. Moreover Severus found many things, if an animal died while any other person was in their mind then there was a serious risk. However his Occlumency bypassed it as he could compartmentalize his brain and emotion effectively and he had yet to see how much animals he could warg into at the same time. Compartmentalizing the brain helped him in controlling different animals at the same time and at that moment he could control five at most. He could do more but he was building the familiarity with animals at the moment first. He understood one thing, with age when his occlumency will grow more and better like his previous world he would be able to warg into more animals more easily.
After that he had used his magic to attract animals, a skill he had seen the Dark Lord use. Changing your magic and covering yourself with nice and warm intentions while projecting the same through your magic, it could help to befriend animals or tame them. He had done that with a wild horse he had found in the Wolfswood. The horse met him regularly as he preferred the horse to roam in the Wolfswood, he didn't want to feed it when they barely had to support themselves in this medeival world. He conveyed his intentions of not harming him with his magic which was felt by the animal which approached him and slowly he had become a regular visitor to him. It may be because Severus gave him some fruits from the trees which he plucked from the Wolfswood or it merely came to interact with him for his magic, he didn't knew. He had even warged into the house two to three times after he had asked the horse for his permission when it had became a regular visitor. Now warging into horse had provided him location of some of the wild aurochs as well as some buffaloes. He knew their location but hadn't brought them or approached them as he didn't wanted them to be here and get stolen. The aurochs were extinct in his world and he had a chance to see them here in flesh. Ofcourse the wild cattles were quite fierce and if things got out of hand he was still a child. So he decided to not bother them at the moment. Besides he could later approach them when he was a little older to get some milk.
It was another important concern which plagued the lives of smallfolk here, most of them hunted the animals in the Wolfswood while the other prefered grains which they grow. It was still summer so there was enough time to grow food. It would have been more faster and larger, if they had stuff like seed drills or crop rotation and manures. However they didn't had these methods which only yielded low amount of food in result.
With the help of his warging, hunting had became much easier for him as he could find animals much more faster. It helped when he warged into a dog and bring some rabbits or squirrels for himself to eat. The furs were stored for use while their meat was cooked or roasted by him usually. Hid grandfather was a little bit stunned that he could already hunt but then again harsh conditions bred harsh men.
He looked at the fire which was burning as he thought about his new grandfather. Apparently the ironborn had rebelled against the crown and a soldier had came to their small settlement hoping, no demanding for volunteers to fight. His grandfather had gone and there was yet not any news of him or about the rebellion. Apparently his grandfather hoped that he will be able to get some decent loot like the previous time he had gone to the battlefield. Steel was not much available or given to commonfolk and the only amount of steel they had in their home were the swords. His grandfather had left the three swords here as Lord Stark would provide weapons for the levies. Which left him to use the swords freely to his heart's content and practise with them.
He looked at their farms which was nearing harvest, apparently his grandfather had left some coppers to give or pay the people who would help him in harvesting the crops. Not that he needed much people to pay, he could cut the grains easily with his sword at home. However gathering the cut grains and then paying a part to the Lords would be little difficult. He had heard that some of the children were going to Winterfell with an old man who had done the same before as most of the healthy and young adult ones and men had gone to fend off the rebellion. The old man was going to pay a part of his grains to the Lord as a tax same with the other farmers who had done the same. Which meant that he too must do this as his grandfather had done the same last year.
He decided that he would accompany them, it would be an opportunity to see the city. He was nearing seven years old and as much as he wanted to live peacefully, a part of him wanted to explore the world which he mostly suppressed. Besides if he never went outside of the pond, he will only think him as the biggest fish. And the last thing he wanted to develop inside him was unbounded arrogance.