Undeliverable

June 24th, 1991

Odysseus knew he was a great owl. He was given a strong name to signify the long journeys he was tasked to deliver messages for. He didn't get as much work as the other owls at the castle, but the others could not travel as far as he could. He spent a lot of time in the castle waiting for a letter to carry, but he knew he would be alerted when he was needed for a trip befitting an owl as important as himself.

He felt a tingle in his mind telling him to report for an acceptance letter. Odysseus leaped through the window by his perch in the owlery and spread his impressive wingspan to fly over the castle grounds of Hogwarts - School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. He flew low over the greenhouses and the lake that connected with the castle before adding a few wingbeats to ride a wind current up the main tower to a room hidden by magic and only accessible by owls and the headmaster. He had arrived just in time to watch the show.

He perched himself on the ledge of the window next to an old writing desk.

On the desk was a large book, a long black feather quill laying on its side, a stack of envelopes and papers, a metal stamp, a bubbling pot of red wax, and a vial of green ink. A page of the large book glowed gold and the quill jumped to attention and dipped itself in the green ink. One envelope slipped off the side of the stack into the center of the table. The quill pounced on top of it like a predator pinning its prey to the ground and scribbled away.

When it finished writing, a paper from one of the stacks in the room jumped from the top of the pile and folded itself perfectly in half, and drifted gracefully into the waiting envelope, slipping in like a missing piece to a puzzle. The envelope rolled over and waited as the boiling pot of red wax dropped a dollop of the hot wax on the back of the envelope flap and the stamp jumped in the air and landed on it like a child jumping into a puddle. No matter how many times he saw it, Odysseus never stopped enjoying this performance.

When all the pieces returned to their spots, the envelope stood up on its edge with the writing facing Odysseus. He studied the address to see where it needed to be delivered. For the very first time, he had no idea where this was. Odysseus knew an incredible number of places, though sometimes just the name was enough. He didn't know this name, the address was a misnomer, and the location was completely unheard of to him.

He did the only thing he could think of, deliver it to someone who could help. Taking the letter, he silently glided down to an office on a lower floor. He landed cleanly on a perch next to the desk and presented the letter to a very proper-looking witch in a forest-green robe and a black pointed hat. She took the envelope and exclaimed, "What in Merlin's name?"

On the envelope was written:

Harry James Potter

Hidden Village

Ma-i

She stuck the letter in her pocket and hurried out of the room.

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was a man who planned out everything in his life. He would plant seeds decades in advance and give them bits of water or support here and there until he was able to harvest the fruits of his labor. The seed that was about to bear fruit, he received on October 31st, 1979 when an unexpected boon fell into his lap as he was interviewing his current divination professor, here at Hogwarts.

When he received that particular seed, he made sure to plant it quickly because he needed it to sprout within a very small time frame. He had to pluck a couple of weeds that sprouted up around it as the only nutrients in the soil needed to be the ones put there by him. He assigned a minder to watch the growth of the plant as he was far too busy to monitor it every day and was pleased to be notified that it had finally accepted the soil it was growing in.

Albus Dumbledore sat at his desk and chuckled at his own mind making analogies about his various projects as growing plants. The previous school year had ended just a week ago and the acceptance letters for new students had already started getting sent out.

The previous Muggle Studies teacher, a man of few adjectives, had elected to take up the position of the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Dumbledore suggested that he take the summer learning more about the position by going on a tour through some of the harsher parts of North Africa and the Balkans.

On a shelf near his desk, was an old mechanical device, covered by a glass dome. At the base, there was a golden plaque that read, 'Edison Stock Ticker 1969, 0003.' Suddenly, the dome blinked red three times, and the tape printed out 'Minerva McGonagall' before it separated and floated to his desk. Dumbledore could hear someone coming up the stairs to his office. He tapped the paper with his finger and it disappeared into the table as the door to the stairs in front of him turned transparent to show a woman running up the stairs towards the door.

From years of practice, Albus waited for the perfect moment when her hand was almost on the knocker for the door to say, "Please come in Minerva!"

Albus used this trick to seem just slightly more omnipotent to those he did not see regularly. He knew that those he saw regularly got annoyed with this parlor trick quickly, even if they didn't fully understand how it worked. Minerva McGonagall almost always expressed some kind of disgust or annoyance when he did it to her, but this time, she just skipped over those emotions and placed a letter on his desk.

"What is this?" She demanded. "I thought he was supposed to be at the Dursleys!"

Albus looked down at the letter to see:

Harry James Potter

Hidden Village

Ma-i

Albus normally kept close control of his reactions to anything he encountered. Most of the times that he was surprised, it was to something still within the range of possibilities he had expected. In the myriad of possibilities he had accounted for, this was nowhere in that scope. He had been expecting young Harry's letter to go out any day now, but according to everything he knew, was reported, and expected; Harry's letter was supposed to be heading to Watford in England. What was going on?

The shock and confusion were evident on his face and Minerva jumped on it.

"So you don't know about this either? I told you it was a bad idea to leave him with those people. Now, where is Ma-i? I've never heard of a place like that in England." Minerva told him with a certain amount of glee at the older man not having his feet flat on the ground for once.

Truthfully, Albus had never heard of Ma-i either. He had been born over a century ago, and through his use of a personal time turner to add more hours to the day, he was probably closer to 130 years old than the 109 that most people assumed he was. This would take a careful approach to avoid tipping off anyone who might spread around that Harry Potter, The Boy-Who-Lived, was missing.

Albus calmed his features, "This needs to be kept quiet. The last report I received was that Harry was fine with the Dursleys." He got up from his desk and walked over to a circular black stone object on a shelf near the door. Pulling out his wand, he tapped it, and it glowed bright red for a moment. "This device monitors the power of the protection from Lily's sacrifice upon him. The brightness indicates the strength of the protection if he is loved and feels an attachment to his home. I borrowed it from the Department of Mysteries, and I am assured it works properly." Hearing this, Minerva relaxed slightly.

"We still need to investigate this. Please go to Watford and visit the Dursleys. You may also want to visit Arabella Figg who lives near them. She has been watching them for me and used to occasionally babysit for Harry as well." Albus walked back to his desk.

"I guess you could do much worse for a minder than Alastor's cousin. She did help The Order keep a close eye on the muggle side of things during the war," Minerva commented.

Albus picked up a couple of papers from seemingly nowhere on his desk and looked through them. He picked up one and set it aside.

"Gerald Abbot and Jonathan Davis also live in the area and their families had contact with Harry when he was younger. We also traced the sale of the Harry Potter signatures that were posted in The Daily Prophet classifieds years back to Mundungus Fletcher. I confirmed they were genuine before disposing of them. Take Severus along with you when you speak to Petunia Dursley, he has familiarity with her from his childhood." Albus instructed, starting to put a plan in motion.

With direction, Minerva took the envelope and left the office.

The castle of Hogwarts was huge, it had 142 staircases, on an average year. They moved, twisted, vanished, and reappeared. There were no elevators, and no quick way to get from the tallest tower to the lowest point of the castle without a serious hike. However, all the students had left the school for the summer and some rules were meant to be broken.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs to Albus's office, she pulled a tiny broom from her pocket and shook it, quickly expanding to full size. Sitting side-saddle on the broom, she coasted through the hallways. Some portraits on the wall yelled at her to slow down, but they were just echoes of people, not the real thing. When she reached the main staircases, she placed one hand on her pointed hat and went into a freefall, diving down six floors in a rush that she didn't often get to experience anymore. Some years she thought to start a pickup game of quidditch with her students, but that wouldn't be professional.

Coasting through the dungeons on her broom, with just the fires from wall sconces lighting the way, she stopped in front of a reinforced wooden door and knocked. It took about three minutes before the door was opened and a man with a pleasant smile on his face greeted her.

Almost joyfully he greeted her, "Good morning Professor, how is your summer vacation going?"

"So that is the reason for your good cheer, Severus? All the students have gone home?" Minerva chuckled. The man in question was tall and wore dark robes that seemed to billow in the nonexistent wind of the dungeon. He had long black hair down to his shoulders that had a shiny appearance to it like it was slightly wet. His nose didn't stick out from his face but seemed to be longer from his eyes down to his lips than most other people. Despite all of these slightly depressing features, his eyes held some life to them.

"That is the best part of the year," he replied. "Now I can devote my time to things that actually give me joy." He led her into the room to his desk. In the classroom behind him, there were ten large cauldrons with different colors and gasses escaping from them. Closest to his desk was a tiny cauldron, made from gold. There were six different glass pipes over the top of it distilling different colors of liquid into tiny vials attached to them.

"Did you just start the Felix?" Minerva frowned, "Albus has just given us an assignment, and I know you're not going to like it."

"I began two days ago. I was planning on the next school year having a few moments of light and luck. What does the old man want?" The happiness on Severus's face was beginning to fade.

Minerva pulled the envelope from her robes and placed it on the table in front of him. He stared at it and developed a sneer, but then confusion took his face as he asked, "Is this where the old man stashed the boy? I certainly have never heard of it, and it says 'Hidden' right in the name."

Minerva shook her head, "No, we do not know where he is. Albus wanted you to join in the initial investigations. He had originally placed the boy with Lily's sister."

A look of revulsion came over Severus' face. "He put the boy with Tuney? Is he insane? I can't think of a worse place for any child other than leaving him on the doorstep of Belatrix Lestrange!"

Minerva's face twitched for a second at his comment.

Severus had been a master of the mind arts for some time now. While he was skimming surface thoughts, he learned to correctly correlate facial cues with the thoughts they were associated with. So seeing the twitch in Minerva's expression, he examined what he just said and came to the correct conclusion.

"Did you leave the boy on the doorstep of Petunia Dursley?" He asked Minerva, already knowing what the answer would be.

"Albus left a note!" She exclaimed.

"Well, that makes it perfectly alright," his voice drenched in sarcasm.

Minerva gave him an apologetic look

"Well, it falls to us to fix the old man's blunder." Severus let out a large sigh. He leaned over to the small gold cauldron and dismissed the flame underneath it. The swirling, multi-colored concoction turned solid grey, like cement, and cracks ran up the glass pipes around the experiment. He pulled out a piece of red parchment from his desk and ran his wand alongside and it faded in color until it was a lighter pink rather than the deep red it was at first. Pulling out a fountain pen with an emerald snake wrapped around it, he wrote:

You owe me

The paper folded itself up into its own envelope and a raven swooped down into the room to carry it off.

He turned to Minerva and just raised an eyebrow toward her before they left the room.

The first stop for the two professors was Arabella Figg. She had helped in the last war by keeping in contact with various police stations in London to monitor suspected raids on muggle towns by Voldemort and his supporters. She had been surprisingly good at hiding in plain sight and finding information that most wizards couldn't access with two wands and a magic eye. Being Alastor Moody's cousin didn't hurt either, the family was notorious for being sharp as tacks, even if they were a bit nuts.

Arabella's home did not look like what they were expecting. The house in question was bright white with small lights running up the path. There was a lemon tree planted in the yard and a white picket fence running around the property. However, the biggest red flag that went off for them was the golden retriever puppy running around the front yard.

Arabella was not a dog person. She kept cats, kneazels, and half-kneazels. She bred them for sale in some shops and she kept around a dozen just for herself. She used some of the smarter ones to help gather information or to use as inconspicuous messengers. There was no way she would ever have a dog. As they got closer a young child ran into the yard and started to play with the dog.

"Excuse me young man, are your parents home?" Minerva asked the young boy. He stared back for a moment before nodding and running back inside. The dog growled a bit at Minerva but the tail continued to wag as it did so.

A young woman in her mid-twenties exited the house in an apron and asked, "How many I help you?"

"We were looking for an Arabella Figg actually, we were led to believe that she lived here," Severus spoke up.

The woman wiped her hands on her apron. "I'm sorry to tell you, but she passed away two years ago. Were you friends of hers?"

They were both shocked but kept their surprise hidden and Severus continued, "We were old friends and happened to be in the area. We hadn't known. Do you know what happened?"

"I was told by our realtor that she chased one of her cats into the street and was hit by a car. We bought the house about four months after." The woman didn't seem to have much sympathy but still sounded apologetic.

Minerva frowned, "Well, we are sorry to disturb you. We hope you have a nice day."

The woman acknowledged her as they walked off.

When they were far enough away, Severus turned to Minerva. "Two years ago? How close of an eye was Albus keeping on the boy? When was the last time she reported to him? He obviously doesn't know about this."

"I don't know. Do you think Alastor knows? They weren't that close, but two years?" Minerva responded. "I want to get all the facts before we confront the Dursleys about this. Let's move on to the Abbots, I sent them a letter earlier saying we might be by today."

With that, they turned a corner and vanished in a snap.

Reappearing at a designated point behind the Abbot's private residence, Minerva rang the bell. Gerald answered the door and his face lit up.

"Minnie! How are you? We got your letter just a few hours ago." Severus raised his eyebrows at the name 'Minnie.'

"I'm doing fine, Jerry," she responded with an emphasis on the nickname. "We hoped to speak with you about something. This is Severus Snape, he took over for Horace as potions professor at the end of the war."

"Come in, it will be great to catch up," he said jovially. You could see some of the years fading from his face as he spoke.

"Stevie!" he called, and an elf popped in wearing a crisp, white pillowcase, hemmed holes for his head and arms. There was a black and yellow braided rope wrapped around its waist tied to the side. A coat of arms was embroidered on the back and there was a patch of a tea kettle on his right shoulder. "Please set up tea and sandwiches for our guests and please make sure to bring extra cream for the tea." He winked at Minerva when he said that last part.

Minerva looked over to Severus as they walked in. "He was a year ahead of me at school. He also witnessed my first animagus transformation and dangled a string in front of me for two hours before I could figure out how to change back."

Severus hid a small grin imagining the scene. They moved into the sitting room just as a plate with sandwiches and the tea arrived.

"We received Hannah's letter two days ago, but something tells me that isn't the reason for your visit." Gerald's eyes narrowed and his voice grew concerned.

"You assume correctly," Minerva stated. "We have some questions about Harry Potter."

Gerald took a deep breath in and sighed. He took out his wand and said, "I think this moved into a talk that may require privacy." A small beam of light shot from his wand and hit a colored piece of glass on the wall leading to the next room, the glass changed from white to blue and they could hear the door lock. Following that, all the portraits in the room went blank.

"I'll try to make this the quick version. Hannah started having bouts of accidental magic very young, so we did not put her into any of the local schools and hired a tutor for her. She still stayed friends with Jonathan Davis's daughter and one day, our little girl tells us that Harry Potter is in Tracey Davis's kindergarten class. We assumed it needed to be kept quiet, but we asked Jonathan's wife, Lauren, to pass on an invitation for our holiday party to the boy's guardians. They accepted but stipulated that their own son could come along as well, which was fine.

"On the night of the party, we noticed there were a few things off. For starters, while the Dursleys were dressed well, Harry appeared to be dressed slightly less impressively. Not too much, but it did seem odd that their son was wearing a tailored suit and Harry was in a mismatched jacket and pants, plus his trainers. Then Mr. Dursley forgot for a moment to include Harry in his family introduction. The rest of the party went well, Harry and his cousin Dudley played with the other children but there was a small incident where some of the older magical kids passed Harry a remembrall."

Severus leaned forwards, "Interesting, are there any reports of what it looked like?"

"Yes, though we had the families of the children who saw it swear to keep it a secret. According to them, the smoke blossomed into a white flower of some kind before a deep redness appeared in the center. It was taken away by the chaperone before anyone could see more."

Snape's eyes widened a bit at the description but kept silent.

"The most significant issue came near the end. As the Dursleys were leaving, my wife gave Petunia Dursley a quick sobering charm so she would be able to drive home without issues after drinking."

Snape was already shaking his head dreading the worst.

"You seem to understand what happened," Gerald said, looking at Severus. "Mrs. Dursely became furious and told us to stay away from her family. She threw away their gift bags but we think Harry still got his. It couldn't be found afterward, and some of the guests had placed short thank you notes in his during the party. There was a muggle aversion ward placed on the bag, so I don't think they could have taken it from him."

"We should probably get going, there are a few other things regarding this that we need to check on," Minerva said.

"We hope you figure out what you need, you'll probably go see Jonathan next, I know his wife sent Dumbledore a few letters in the past concerning Harry's wellbeing," Gerald added, "and we really do need to catch up, so I expect to see you again before the new term or I might spread around the details of the catnip incident of 1953."

Minerva looked embarrassed and agreed to return before they continued.

There was no time to have contacted the Davis family, so they just showed up and knocked.

A brown-haired girl with glasses answered the door. She had a wand that had been stuck in the front pocket of her jeans but was half sticking out. The two exchanged a glance at it before Minerva asked, "Are your parents home?" just as a woman's voice called from inside "Who's at the door?"

The girl called back, "There are some people here to see you!"

A woman with sandy blonde hair hurried to the door and Minerva introduced herself.

"My name is Minerva McGonagall; Deputy Headmistress at Hogwarts. This is Professor Severus Snape; Potions Master. May we come in?"

The woman was taken aback a little bit hurried them in and offered them tea. The little girl stared at them for a moment before asking, "Are you going to be my teachers?"

"We most certainly are," replied Minerva. "I will be instructing you in transfiguration, and Professor Snape here will be your potions instructor. Did you just get your new wand?"

The girl pulled it out of her pocket and waved it. Nothing happened. She frowned a bit, "When I did it in the store, there were green and white sparks."

Severus spoke up, "That sounds like the colors of Slytherin House. I am the head of that house. I must warn you though, if you end up there, you will need to be strong of will and make sure you stand up for yourself. It is the house of the ambitious and sometimes that causes a lot of hurt feelings for others."

The girl nodded, soaking up the information.

Lauren returned with the tea at that moment. "So what can I help you with?"

"We are actually on a bit of an investigation right now," Minerva began. "We were hoping you could tell us about your experience with Harry Potter."

Lauren was about to speak when Tracey spoke up, "You know Harry? I haven't seen him for years, is he ok? I remember he was really fast and was fun when he wasn't looking sad."

Severus spoke up. "This might not be a conversation you want to have with your daughter here."

Lauren put on a stern look, "Harry had a lot of problems, and I wrote to Albus Dumbledore quite often to tell him so. He always responded that there was no need to worry. From you being here, I'm assuming there was such a need. Anything you tell me, I will tell my daughter, so you might as well start talking."

Minerva tried to think of a place to start. "We know he's safe, and from some specialized monitoring equipment, we know he is in a place where he is loved. Though we have no idea where that place is."

Tracey seemed to be trying to find a question to ask, but couldn't think of one.

Lauren just replied, "If he is somewhere he's getting love, he's certainly not with the Dursleys. We didn't see him at all after he had kindergarten with Tracey, but she would always ask if he could come to play, and I would occasionally ask Mrs. Dursley directly when I would see her around. She always refused, and then after the second year of primary school, no one saw him anymore. First, we heard rumors around town that he had run away, but then that changed to him going to some boarding school I had never heard of specifically for juvenile delinquents. The first summer he should have been home, I wrote Dumbledore and he assured me everything was fine."

Minerva was now extremely worried and told Lauren that they would have to leave to check on other things. Severus warned them not to spread the information around and gave them both a quick scan to assure themselves that they didn't have the inclination to do so.

When they left, Severus spoke to Minerva, "I don't think we should speak to Petunia today. It would be best to try to catch Alastor at the ministry now, as his home is a death trap. Then we should report everything we have found to Albus. It seems like you might want to give him a piece of your mind right now."

Minerva nodded and they apparated away to the Ministry.

The two of them headed down the ministry elevators to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and were directed to one of the auror training halls to find Alastor Moody. Upon entering the hall, which was magically expanded from the size of a one-bedroom flat to that of a warehouse, they saw Alastor training with a young boy. They were exchanging rapid spellfire, though while the boy was dodging, jumping, shielding, and swatting away spells; Alastor stood in one place merely leaning to the side or swatting away spells that got too close to him.

Alastor was tall and fit with a short haircut that showed several scars down the back of his head and one on the side. He wore a brown leather trench coat that you could almost feel the defensive enchantments peeling off of it. His left foot was missing, replaced with a metal prosthetic that had several sharp claws at the end.

Suddenly, he cast an extra-large red spell at the boy, shattering the boy's shield and causing him to flop down on the ground unconscious. Alastor spun around and fired three red spells at Severus which he quickly swatted away into the walls with his wand like they were ping-pong balls. On his face, Alastor had numerous scars with even a chunk of his nose missing. His left eye had been replaced; the entire upper and lower eyelid of that eye had been replaced with a bronze ring that had numerous runes carved onto it. Trapped behind the ring was a neon blue eye with a slightly darker blue iris and black pupil in the center. The magical eye moved quickly between Severus and Minerva while his real eye remained focused on Severus.

He smiled at Severus, "Good evening, Death Eater."

Severus just rolled his eyes and replied dully, "Exonerated."

Minerva spoke up. "We have to speak with you briefly, do you have the time?"

Alastor looked down the training room at the young man flat on the ground and asked with a devious look in his real eye, "Do you both need me or can I speak with just one of you?"

"I can handle this if you do not wish to speak to Severus."

Alastor raised his wand and called "Rennervate!"

A pale blue light impacted the young man and he started to stir. "Severus, you can take over for me while I speak with Minerva here." Calling down to the young man, "Tristan! Time for some hands-on experience, this dark wizard will be trying to kill you." He pointed to Severus, "If you can last until I'm done speaking here, you can go home for the next three days and relax. If you don't…" he trailed off purposely. Turning back to Severus, "Don't kill him, let him last till the end of our conversation, let him think that he has a chance."

Snape remembered Tristan from his time at Hogwarts. He wasn't a bad student, but it was like someone just handed him a squeeze toy with the faces of all the students of Hogwarts on it. He was going to have some fun. The kid was training to be an auror after all.

The young man jumped to his feet, determined to have a long weekend as Severus fired off some powerful curses toward him.

Alastor turned to Minerva, "So how can I help you?"

Minerva put on a sympathetic look and asked, "When was the last time you spoke with your cousin Arabella?"

Now it was his turn to look the same, "I've already heard, I was notified when she died. It's a shame they took her to a muggle hospital, she might have made it in St. Mungos. But now we will never know. Why are you coming to me about it, two years later?"

It was good that she didn't need to break the news to him herself, but now she had other questions. "Did you know she was on an assignment for Albus?"

Surprised, Alastor narrowed his eyes and asked, "What did that old fool have her doing?"

Her answer surprised him, "She was looking after where Harry Potter was growing up, occasionally sitting for him too."

Relaxing, he nodded and smiled. "Well, I'm glad she was able to keep operational security until the end, though from your visit, I suspect that he didn't know about her death until now either. Is the boy alright?"

Cautiously, but knowing he could be trusted, Minerva told him that Harry was missing.

Alastor gave a side glance and a nod towards Severus who fired a particularly nasty ribbon of yellow light, tinged with a rotting brown color at Tristan. He successfully dodged it by jumping in the air only for the spell to sink into the floor and explode upwards, blasting him into the wall to his side and knocking him out cold.

Alastor raised his eyebrows toward Severus who reported, "He's okay. I figure he could probably hold his own and take down most of the medium-security prisoners at Azkaban, but the maximum security ones would wipe the floor with him."

Alastor nodded back toward Snape, "So that's about the level you should be at?" He turned back to Minerva, "Let me know if you need help tracking him down. Tristan could use the experience of a real manhunt. Good luck, I need to go wake him up and ruin his weekend." He started heading over to where the young man was still unconscious on the floor.

Minerva and Severus left the ministry to return to Hogwarts.

Author's Note: So, Chapter 13 was the end of the first arc, there was a nice little time skip here. Harry was a little over eight years old in the last chapter, so now it's the end of the school year just before his 11th birthday.

Author's Note 2: In the scene with the acceptance letter being prepared I was imagining two things. The first was the scene from The Sorcerer's Apprentice in Fantasia. The second was from the book Another Fine Myth where Skeeve demonstrates his studies in levitation with the feather and the book. Leave me a comment in the reviews if you know what I'm talking about with that one. I remember reading that series before I read Tolkien's works but after Redwall.

Author's Note 3: When I mention someone having few adjectives, I'm referencing one of my favorite abandoned FanFics, "Harry Potter and the Natural 20." The MC, Milo is a D&D wizard who is summoned into the HPU and goes to school with Harry in their first year. All the rules of D&D still apply to him, but no one else. Neutral chaos ensues. I always hope that one day that one will get finished. I still very much recommend it to others despite being abandoned.

Author's Note 4: I don't think JKR ever said specifically when the prophecy from Trelawney took place. My headcanon always said it should have taken place before he was conceived. And what better date than the day when everything bad happens to Harry?

Alternative castings:

While Alan Rickman was the best possible Severus Snape we could wish for, if I had to recast him, I would go with Adam Driver.

The only issue I had with Alan Rickman is that he was too old for the role. We need to remember that the people from Snape's Hogwarts generation are in their early 30s at the beginning of the books. Alan Rickman was in his mid-50s when he started the role of Severus Snape. Most of the people cast for that generation looked way too old in the movies. In the movies, Harry's parents in their photos looked to be in their 40s or 50s even though they were 21 when they died.

Minerva McGonagall goes to Jessica Lange

Albus Dumbledore goes to Michael Caine.