January 17th, 1998
Harry is seventeen
Lupin is thirty-seven
Snape is thirty-eight
"We're here," Hermione announced softly.
They were at the base of a sloping hill near the lake and a beech tree—the very same one Sirius Black and James Potter had hung out with Remus Lupin some twenty years ago.
At the top of the slope, the two cloaked figures stared down at the trio of Hogwarts students at the base of the slope. The rain had been pouring so heavily that the slope acted as a mini-waterfall, with floods of water gushing downhill, but the rain had dissipated, leaving only stormy, threatening-looking clouds to roll over their heads.
"Voldemort," Harry hissed, loud enough for the Death Eaters to hear.
"No," one of the cloaked figures answered, "And I wonder what you were thinking, Weasley, disobeying McGonagall's orders and traipsing about on the grounds," he said in a cold, sneering voice.
"Snape?" Hermione gasped.
There was silence for a moment. Finally:
"Potter?" Snape's voice sounded, probably for the first time in his entire life, mildly surprised.
"Harry, what are you doing here?" Another familiar voice echoed, "You're supposed to be in the Pyrenees." There was a dangerous edge to it; one Harry was not accustomed to hearing.
"Well Lupin, once again you have managed to screw up grotesquely, as it is quite obvious that Potter isnot in the Pyrenees."
Harry's mind suddenly shut down, his body stiffening, his flesh turning cold and prickly to the touch. Lupin working with Snape? The traitor, the man who had killed Dumbledore, who was the closest thing Harry had as a father? Part of him didn't want to believe it, and another part was silently goading him, "Go on, Harry, go on, believe it. He's standing right in front of you isn't he?"
Red fury and black hatred swam in front of his eyes--part of him wished it was Voldemort so he could have finally ended the battle here and there...another part was glad it was Snape.
Because then the first part of his vengeance would be fulfilled.
He would kill Snape.
Twenty-five Years Ago
June 8th, 1973
Lupin is twelve
Snape, James, and Sirius are thirteen
"Happy Birthday in August, Moony," Sirius clapped Remus on his back.
Remus nodded.
"Don't look so sallow, man," James chided him, looking up from the diagram he was currently studying, "We're almost there. I just can't believe we have to wait a whole three months before trying this again—two months' work down the tubes," he grumbled.
"I don't even want you doing this for me, James."
"Actually," James screwed up his forhead thoughtfully, "Two months is probably only a fraction of the time it'll take for us to become full Animagi."
Remus ignored James and added, "We're sneaking around behind Dumbledore's back, and the last time anyone pulled the wool over his eyes was You-know-who. Besides, when I change, I might attack you even if you're another animal." Remus sighed, and collapsed into one of the Room of Requirement's beanbags.
"Moony, be quiet," James ordered, his tone affectionate, and resumed studying the official Animagi theoretical diagram.
"Look!" Peter squeaked, "I think I did some of it!" He was standing in the far right corner, his eyes still screwed up in concentration.
Sirius, Remus, and James all turned to look at Peter Pettigrew. He didn't look any different.
"Uh, Peter, man," James said slowly, "Your voice just sounds squeakier."
"Oh," Peter opened his eyes, crestfallen.
Sirius snickered, and Remus frowned at him.
"We need to be nicer to Peter—
But before Remus could fully admonish Sirius, a loud explosion boomed throughout the voice, and then Peter's cry of "Jaaaaames, HEEEELP MEEEEE!" shrieked throughout the Room of Requirement.
"Good Merlin," James breathed, adjusting his glasses, which had skewered off his nose when he was thrown about three feet backwards.
Peter Pettigrew had sprouted a five foot long, naked, flesh-colored table.
"That's fairly unattractive," Remus observed.
"Hahahaha," Sirius chortled, "It's a worm tail! Hey, Wormtail, good try, but you're not quite there yet."
"Wormtail," James repeated thoughtfully, "Moony, Wormtail."
Three Months Later
September 2nd, 1973
Snape, James, and Remus are thirteen
Sirius is fourteen
Sirius Black was standing off to the side of his dormitory's door moodily. The door was slightly ajar so noises from the party in the common room filtered into even the third year Gryffindor boys' dormitory, which was in the topmost tower, along with the older girls' rooms.
Noises coming from his party.
It was the second day of September, so James had insisted on throwing a birthday party for Sirius, but at about eighty-thirty, Sirius discretely slipped out. He was in too much of a bad mood to enjoy himself, especially since the very reason for his bad mood was also the same person who had insisted on the party. Sirius didn't know why, but ever since their first escapadee in first year, he had been fixated on James' father. There was a special services trophy with Aaron Quirinius Potter on it, side-by-side with another trophy with a weird name on it, Tom Riddle.
In the spring when Sirius was just about to crack the mystery of the chronically disappearing Remus Lupin, he had tried to look through some of the school's old records in the library. Madam Pince may have hated every fiber of James' callous, good-natured being, but she visibly softned under Sirius' fledgling charms.
He may have been only thirteen at the time, but Sirius was fast discovering good looks and a pleasant disposition coupled with intelligence like Sirius' had could pretty much get you anywhere.
So she had led him to the very back of the library, dangerously close to the Restricted Section where James would pilfer several of the practical Animagi books they would use in the months to come, until they arrived at a very small door frame. Madam Pince unlocked it for Sirius and even he, with his smaller-framed, thirteen year-old body, had to duck into the room.
"The Hogwarts Record Room. Records over thirty years old are strictly off-limits except with special permission from Dumbledore, so I am most certainly not telling you how to find them. The records you might be interested in are filed just up there," she gestured to the wall on Sirius' left, "I'll leave you here for thirty minutes, but then I'm coming back to check up on you. Happy hunting, Mr. Black," she waved at him slightly and ducked back out.
Left to his own devises, Sirius immediately headed towards the filing cabinet with the drawers emblazoned with a gold, curly P.
Potter, Aaron Quirinius, Sirius thought to himself. He pulled on the top drawer. It stuck and wouldn't open. Sirius tried again, but the drawer refused to yield.
Impatient, Sirius drew his wand and recited an Unsealing Charm while pulling on the drawer. It still wouldn't budge, so Sirius pulled and pulled until he found himself with his two feet up against the filing cabinet, with both hands straining against the drawer's onyx handle.
To his horror, the drawer chose that very moment to unstick, and Sirius immediately dropped to the floor. Over his head, the drawer flew open, but it wouldn't stop--it was as if a blast of magic propelled it, keeping it going and going and going...it finally stopped at the opposite end of the room, about forty feet long, full of paper-thin files having to do with past students whose surname began with a P.
Sirius' heart sank to the bottom of his chest. There were three more P drawers; how was he going to find James' father in the midst of all this? He had no idea the school kept so many files on former students...he had no idea there had been even so many P students at Hogwarts in the last thirty years.
He turned out to be correct, for as he peered at the papers closest to the opening of the cabinet he had noted that the papers were old. Very, very old, so old that if somebody touched them without magic, it probably would crumble in their hands. As Sirius walked along the room, the papers' condition improved but not by much.
Obviously, James' father, having been a fairly recent student, wouldn't be in this drawer, which seemed to be reserved for students from about A.D. 900 - A.D. 1600. Also, whenever Sirius got too close to it, an invisible force field shocked him, keeping his hands away from the ancient, potentially valuable papers.
This was what Madam Pince had meant by "strictly off-limits", but Sirius had an easy time of finding them. If that was her idea of hiding them...Sirius shook his head, dismayed at his librarian's lack of security.
Sirius had been expecting to find one huge lump dedicated to the Potters, but since the drawers were divided by time as well as surname, there was only a significantly slim portion of the Pot- section that was accessible. Sure enough, Aaron Quirinius Potter's yellowed folder was found, just behind his best friend's own.
He noted with interest that James Potter, barely a third year, had already had a marginally thicker folder than his father. Maybe McGonagall hadn't been exaggerating when she claimed that she had never seen rule-breaking like theirs in decades, not excluding criminal lawbreakers.
Hmm.
Carefully, Sirius extracted the gross-yellow colored folder and settled himself, uncomfortably,on the stone floor and against the O cabinet. He opened the folder and glaring up at him was an older, more dangerous-looking James.
He had a tall and skinny frame, skinnier than Sirius thought James would eventually become, and his hair seemed somehow darker, more black than James. His eyelids slowly closed as he blinked, bored, and he smirked up at Sirius, his neutral, grey eyes sliding, judging.
Sirius was really intimidated by James' father. When they were younger, they never really saw each other except at some socialite gathering or other, but the Potter family didn't really care for the pureblood haughtiness and even as a young boy, Sirius had gotten the gist of the fact that the Potter family was very, very private and secretive.
He had been disappointed; the very act of not wanting to associate with prejudiced, purity-fixated families had made them all the more appealing to the younger Sirius who was surrounded by a family that seemed darker and sinister to him. So this picture was the first time Sirius had gotten a proper glimpse at James' father, but Sirius had felt that he was betraying James somehow--James did not like to talk about his family.
He turned the picture, the graduate photo taken in seventh year for these very files, over gingerly, so that its back was facing Sirius. There wasn't much on Aaron Q. Potter, but there were a few documents that held Sirius' interest.
One was a certificate of high honors in Dark and Defense Aptitude. In the early days of Dippet, Dark Arts was still a mandatory course so that the students would be easier prepared to defend themselves when equipped with the knowledge of the very thing they were defending themselves against.
By the time James' father had graduated, the class was dropped from the curriculum so more emphasis could be placed on the Defense part. Apparently, it ran in the family, for his own friend showed some pretty amazing talent in DADA although James admitted Transfiguration was more his niche.
There was another high honors certificate for Herbology and Potions, then an apprenticeship license issued in 1947 under a Master of Potions,Washington Caedmon, and there was a paper--with only a quarter's length of type on it--listing student misconduct. The stuff was pretty minor from his first and second years, like intentionally spilling custard on Louise Midgens, although there was one potentially dangerous hex Aaron Potter had cast when he was in his sixth year. Sirius squinted his eyes--it wasgetting dimmer in the room--to see who had recieved the hex, and he read the name with a jolt:
Sangui-depleting curse on House mate, Thomas Marvolo Riddle.
Sirius scrambled for the last page in the folder, and sure enough, it was an elaborate, emblazoned certificate of graduation from Hogwarts. The writing was a shiny green color and spidery, with a silver, wax coat of arms sealed in the lower right corner. A serpent's eye winked up at Sirius.
So this was why James didn't like to talk about his family.
The party noise was now dying out. The September air was still warm, with lingering traces of summer, making Sirius drowsy. He would speak to James about it in the morning.
Two and One-Half Months Later
November 17th, 1973
Snape and Lupin are thirteen
James and Sirius are fourteen
Severus Snape at age thirteen was a stringy kid, but already he had long, greasy hair that swung in his face, hiding his pallid skin from the world. Snape tolerated it well enough, but it didn't seem to want to tolerate him in return; every day he found himself bearing the brunt of constant ridicule...humiliation...the bullying, Gryffindor toerags never passed up an opportunity to hurt him even.
Whether it was stringing him up in a tree, dangerously close to the range of the newly planted but already famed Whomping Willow, or tossing him into the lake, periodically holding his head underwater magically for longer and longer intervals of time until Snape started to fear for his life.
They were not murderers, he suspected, but they were foolish to the point of mortality. One day, they were going to kill, however mistaken it would be, and not even Dumbledore could avoid expelling them.
Snape had grown up learning it was avery good thing to be defensive--perhaps even to the point of offensive. When he turned eleven and recieved his Hogwarts admission...the ecstasy...his mother, Eileen Prince, had been relieved, but Tobias Snape, his father, had been wary. Wary because the old Muggle knew that Snape would do whatever it took to get his revenge.
So he arrived at Hogwarts, and immediately, he found himself accepted--for the first time in his pathetic excuse for existence--and he was compelled to embrace them in return.
The Death Eaters.
Oh they weren't Death Eaters just yet, but they were in their seventh year, and were already simpering after a lifetime's service with the rising Dark Wizard of the time, Lord Voldemort. They were the only ones who had accepted him, marveled at his readiness to absorb the Dark Arts, his keen wit, his mastery at potions...
Every time he returned home, his father would grow more detached, and his mother slowly emerged from her shell. She noticed her son's growing aptitude and his emerging Slytherin qualities, and she approved.
"You did a good job, Severus," she rasped, rubbing her throat gingerly, "Keep working...the Malfoys--my family has known them since forever...they're a good crowd, and they'll get you the power you want."
And now it was the middle of November in Severus Snape's third year; he was lying in his four-poster bed, the one furthest from the window in the third year boys' dormitories. It was always drafty in here since Slytherin housing was in the dungeons, but Snape had grown so used to it, he always broke a sweat when exposed to sunlight unless it was one of the cold Scottish winter days.
His mind was rapidly firing thoughts, the incantations he had studied that day, and grotesque images he had seen in his books...the restricted books Malfoy had loaned him as a graduation present.It returned to the Reverse Potion and its accompanying illustration; it turned an organism inside out--so that its innards were on the outside and its epidermis never seeing the light of the day again.
He wasn't sure if he dared to try it on one of the school's rats yet...much less a human being, which, surely, was what this Dark Lord expected?The Dark Lordwas a killer, but he would give Snape his much needed power, and he would have his final validation and revenge against his father and all Muggles like him.
Surely all the Muggles were as ignorant and stupid as his father.
These thoughts took up merely a few seconds in Snape's overworked mind. He raced and raced, his head spinning around in circles, and he tossed and turned in his bed. It seemed that no matter what position he slept in, it simply was too hot--
Cold. What was that? He tensed, but he knew all was lost. How stupid he had been, how completely ignorant. He'd been caught off guard and now he was about to pay it with his life. The cold, steel blade pressed harder against his neck.
"Snape," a man's voice hissed, dripping with hatred.
How had he already made enemies? His worst enemies were no older than fourteen and were in Gryffindor, not fully grown, dangerous wizards.
The Death Eaters.
But they weren't enemies. They were...friends weren't they?
It was at this moment that Snape realized that no one was a friend. Every one was an enemy...except those select few that just might be foolish enough to actually have your best interests at heart--but then they would screw it up, and endanger you in the process.
And it was this that Snape would carry with him for the rest of his school years and even as an adult, looming and striking fear into the hearts of the generations that would sprout from his contemporaries...as an adult when he would work for both Voldemort and Dumbledore.
"I should kill you right now." The blade pressed deeper, and Snape felt a trickle of blood escape. He was going to die and there was nothing he could do about it; except...except he detected a bit of uncertainty in the assaultor's voice.
"Who are you?" Snape said softly, his back still turned from the man.
He felt the knife jerk, but away from his skin and he let out an internal sigh of relief although he maintained his surface with rigid control.
"I...I can't do this. I've been a fool. I thought I would be able to change everything, but...but you're just a kid aren't you? You're not the old bat, the greasy git--yet. Maybe James was right; everyone needs a chance to grow."
The knife was now completely pulled away. Snape siezed the opportunity to slowly edge his hand towards the wand he kept tucked under the bedcovers, but all the while rage was coursing throughout him.
Potter! He couldn't believe it. When he had been giving Potter the benefit of doubt--that his foolishness would be to blame for any possible mortalities--a hired assassin had almost immediately popped up at his bedside. But a tinge of doubt still nagged at him.
Potter was just fourteen and stupid. He may have hated Snape, but Snape suspected it was because of his incredible (and unreasonable) animosity for the Dark Arts, something that it was widely known was Snape's area of expertise. Potter did not hate just for the sake of hatred and the consuming power it usually accompanied.
A voice rang in Snape's head: it was Lucius Malfoy's.
You have the Potter boy, eh? Pureblood family, but he's obviously gone to seed, Lucius sniffed, a Gryffindor. Can you imagine? Probably the first one in generations--they're pureblood but they haven't had a Gryffindor since about the eighteenth century. Of course, they're all idiots. Aaron Potter begs to do business with my father, but Father says 'no' of course--they're all great idiots.
But then Rodolphous Lestrange pulled Snape, then eleven years old, aside and carefully informed Snape that Lucius was, as usual, full of crap.
His oily face had broken into a sneering smirk, contorting his already unattractive expression; it was in fact, Aaron Potter who refused to do business with Malfoy Sr. Malfoy Sr. had begged Potter Sr. for years, Lestrange had said, nodding as he spoke, but Potter had some kind of standard--a code of morals, which was unusual for the man had been in Slytherin.
Ambition knows no ettiquette.
However, Snape had been left with the distinct impression that the golden boy, James Potter, had a family background that was certainly quite muddied...Potter Sr. did some nasty business and Malfoy wanted in, but Aaron Potter had said 'no' because apparently, Malfoy Sr. was too nasty for his taste.
"Potter didn't send you," Snape growled, "He's too soft." His hand gripped around his wand.
"No, nobody sent me. I thought maybeI could preserve the future, but I was wrong. I have to trust James...and Harry."
Snape bolted upright so fast that if lightning had struck the spot, he would have surely escaped him.
Only one spell flitted through his mind--the one spell he could remember from the day's reading:
"Avada Kedavra!"
The green jet of light burst from the tip of his wand, but instead of hitting somebody, it passed right through the air where Snape had been sure his assailant had been and struck somebody's bed's curtains.
The curtains instantly caught fire, and soon enough, there were yelps and shouts as all of the dungeons woke up in the middle of the night.
"You used an Unforgivable Curse, Severus," Dumbledore said quietly, his eyes grave as they peered over his half-moon lenses.
Snape, for the first time, was unusual about what to do. So he did the only thing he could think of at the time; and it was, for a fact, the last time Severus Snape did it.
He told the truth.
"I see," Dumbledore frowned. "There was a man. He had a knife to your throat and so you decided to cast the Killing Curse, but then he disappears and you end up nearly taking your House mate's life?"
Bile choked Snape's throat; was the old man actually ridiculing him? Condescension? Snape searched his Headmaster's eyes, but there was none of the sympathy, none of the willingness to listen that he had so often seen displayed for James Potter...and Sirius Black...and Remus Lupin!
Instead there was suspicion, distrust, and concern. That was the worst. Snape did not need concern; hadn't he proved himself able, contradictory to his mostly Muggle heritage? He had forsaken his Muggle side, completely embraced the Prince within him, and yet, he had his compentency doubted by one of the greatest Muggle-lovers and old fools!
"I am telling you what I know sir," Snape declared, his voice tight. Vengeance, vengeance, he will pay one day.
They were in Dumbledore's office--alone. At least the man had the common sense to make this affair private and not drag the other Professors into it; the whole school didn't have to know about the illegal Curse Snape had cast to defend his own life. He almost wished they did--that way they would know to never ridicule him...or assault him when they were all grown.
"There was a presence," Dumbledore relented; he had no idea how furious he was making Snape.
Was the old man acting like he was doing Snape a favor by admitting what was so obviously true--that there had been a man who threatened his life and Dumbledore was doing nothing about it.
If he had threatened Potter's life, Dumbledore probably would have put the whole school alert, sent Hit Wizards, and had the whole Ministry and Wizengamot after the murderer.
"You are all right, I hope?" Dumbledore allowed a small, comforting smile, "It was very quick thinking Severus, but I had hoped you would turn to Defense...not murder--
"An eye for an eye, Headmaster," Snape interrupted. The expression on Dumbledore's face grew even more concerned and filled with...regret?
"You remind me so much of--of a young man I once taught not long ago. I can only hope that you make the right choices when you are here at Hogwarts, Severus, for the wrong ones will surely lead you astray and onto the same path that Tom Riddle took. Severus, please listen to me; I am confiding something into you that I have never confided into any student before."
Snape's interest grew, although he had been diverting his complete attention to the Headmaster for the whole time. It was just his misleading bored expression that threw Dumbledore and so many others before him off.
"This young man was talented; he was a gifted student, but he too, had an unhappy childhood. His mother was a pureblood witch, his father a Muggle. He came to Hogwarts in a position very much similar to yours, Severus, but it was my personal belief that he had an unimaginable streak of cruelty within him. One he always kept concealed."
Dumbledore raised his eyebrow at Snape knowingly, perhaps acknowledging Snape's rigid control and his care to conceal his feelings.
"But as Tom Riddle grew, the cruelty turned to something I never could have imagined--you may think me vain, foolish, and I readily accept this for I was vain and foolish--for me to never imagine that a student of mine could actually have...evil in him...once he graduated.
Severus...this man went on to kill his father and grandparents--then he disappeared from the face of the earth, only to return just a few years earlier."
Snape's blood ran cold. Was Dumbledore talking about who Snape thought he actually dared to mention?
"The man I am speaking of came to be publicly known as Lord Voldemort. Be careful, Severus," Dumbledore lowered his head, his eyes peering at Snape over from his spectacles once more.
"And now I bid you a good night."
"Do you know who tried to kill me?" Snape asked bluntly.
He wanted to remind Dumbledore that he was indebted to Snape for not protecting him like he would have protected his favorites, his Gryffindors.
He was glad to see something like shame flicker across Dumbledore's face.
"I am very sorry, Severus; you handled yourself remarkably, but the fault lies with me. I hope you will forgive me," Dumbledore gazed at Snape searchingly, "The man who tried to kill you was a former Hogwarts student by the name of Arthur John Torrence."
"He had red hair," Snape remarked sullenly, "He had red hair, and he was a coward."
Arthur Torrence had tried to kill Snape. Snape would one day return the favor.