Disclaimer: still don't own anything.

Summary: Severus finds a friend. (Yes it happens more in here. But I am not to good in summaries.)

Warnings: physical violence

Chapter 7: Of happiness, coldness and sadness

Three years have passed.

The small boy named Severus Snape had grown taller although he remained skinny. His black eyes had become colder and more calculating. His thin figure was underlined by the over-sized worn-out clothes he wore. In fact, they looked like they might fit a grown man perfectly well.

His black shirt was faded and had several holes. The edge of his trousers looked like someone had cut it roughly to fit his size. Although this must have happened quite some time ago because it was much too short now. His dirty bare feet rested on the green grass.

The much too large trousers were hold together by the only neat looking thing the boy possessed. The black belt with the silver stings looked so much out of place that one might think he must have stolen it. But the boy did not care about his appearance nor did he care about peoples opinion.

He rested against the old tree at the lake and was completely immersed in a book. It was the some tree in which trunk he had hidden himself from a storm three years ago and had met the man with the crimson eyes.

It was a sunny and warm summer morning whose cloudless sky promised a hot day.

The boy's black eyes were fixed upon the pages of the old book whilst he turned a page. The letters in faded gold on the dark red cover forming the title:" Hogwarts, A History".

In fact he was so concentrated on his readings that he did not notice the two arguing girls approaching his position at first.

"Lilly, no! Let him be! He surely is mad!"

"I just want to talk to him, Tuney. There is no harm in that."

"You can't know that! He is dangerous!"

Severus had stopped reading whilst the voices grew louder and nearer. He continued to stared at the letters in his book and listened hard.

The footsteps he had heard just a moment ago stopped abruptly.

"How would you know that?", the girl supposedly named Lilly asked in an annoyed tone.

"Oh Lilly! He practically lives in that tree. He is dirty and talks to no one. I mean, just look at what he wears! And mother said he is the boy of that drunk lunatic down at Spinner's End."

Lilly bristled with anger:"Tuney, maybe he is always here and wears those shabby clothes because his father is a drunk lunatic and maybe he speaks to no one because everyone thinks just like you do and avoids him."

Severus closed the book slowly, stood up and strode around the tree silently. He had heard enough. Those two were talking about him right under his nose. One stated he is a murderous lunatic and the other one was even worse. And above all, both were only Muggles!

Laying as much confidence in his voice as he could muster, he snarled: "I don't need your pity". Besides...", his cold gaze now resting on the brown haired girl with the sour face, who he thought might be Tuney: "it is a pretty stupid thing to bitch around when the person you bad-mouthed about is right there."

The brown haired girl pulled herself up to her full height. Severus had to look up to her for she was nearly a head taller. She hissed angrily at him:"Who do you call stupid?"

The black haired boy smiled and when he spoke, his voice was calm and soft:" Well, you of course."

Suddenly the girl called Tuney screamed at him in rage and clenched her hands into tight fists: "You are a dump-ass! A LUNATIC! Get lost you crazy FREAK!"

A sudden wind pushed her back and she fell on her bottom. Severus was so surprised that all he could do was stare at her. Of course he had intended to punish her for her profanity but the wind was not caused by him. Neither had it been a natural gust of wind. Her face now red with anger, she threw a killing glance at the younger one. The redheaded girl stared back in terror, her lips trembling as she spoke in a shaky whisper: "Tuney, I am really sorry. I did not mean to. I apologize. Are you hurt? Please don't be mad at me. I did not want to..."

Well, wasn't that interesting?

Maybe he was not the only child gifted with magic around here.

Tuney scrambled to her feet, ignoring Lilly's helping hand.

"I really did not want to hurt you, Tuney."

Yes, Severus thought delighted, I meant to. But I have to admit, this is so much better than what I had in mind.

The slight smile on his face widened into a grin whilst he studied the red haired girl, intrigued by her magical outburst.

That was why he did not see the fist been swung at him. He only heard the girl named Lilly scream and saw her running towards him whilst he fell on the floor, unbalanced by the blow.

He had to blink several times to clear his blurred vision and banish the pain out of his head.

"Ar you all right?"

A hand was placed at his shoulder and when he looked up, he saw directly into the concerned face of Lilly, only inches away from his own. He had not been this near to another person in the last two years and he flinched back a little, startled.

"Yes," he croaked and turned his head to the left in the hope of gaining at least some personal space." It was nothing. Don't mention it.", he mumbled.

A hand was stretched out to him.. Utterly bewildered by the gesture, he just stared at it with wide black eyes.

Lilly chuckled:" You know, I won't bite you. Let me help you up."

On the one hand he did not want her help, but one the other hand he did not want to mimic the reaction of stupid Tuney. So he let her.

Both children looked at each other. Neither of them able to break the outstretched silence. Severus wanted to say something if only to end this awkward moment. He did want to ask her about her magical outburst. But how to ask her about something she must think comes right from a fairy tail?

His thoughts of how to approach the topic were disturbed by Lilly's apologetic words:" I am really sorry. Tuney doesn't mean it that way. It was not the first time I did something... strange and it always makes her mad at me."

"You mean you did other things like the wind before?", he asked curious, wanting to know more about her.

Her cheeks became a slight shade of pink as she continued:"Well, yes. I know it sounds weird, but sometimes such things do happen out of nowhere all around me."

She plucked a flower from the grass: "Watch.", she commanded and Severus did. Her face was now concentrated whilst she stared at the small flower on her hand. The black eyes were fixed upon the delicate thing. Severus found that it was a rather huge flower. He titled his head in wonder. Was it his imagination or did the picked flower grew bigger? Yes, there could be no denial that it had at least doubled its original size. Where the change had been minor at first, now went faster and faster.

"Oh!", Lilly gasped as the flower – now nearly the size of her palm- took flight in a small breeze and danced through the air. The delicate thing landed directly in the outstretched hands of Severus.

A laughter as clear as ringing bells filled the air.

"I knew it!"She took his hands into hers carefully not to crush the flower, her eyes reflecting the same joy of her laughter.

"I knew it! I have watched you so often!", she laughed warmly at him. "You are always here. Always. When it rains, you don't get wet. When its cold, it's always warm around here. There is never snow near that tree. I knew it!", she laughed again, harder this time:" This is so incredible!"

Severus could not stop him from joining the contagious laughter and soon both were sitting in the grass, neither of them able to stop. He did not remember when he had laughed this hard the last time and it felt good and somehow liberating.

It took them quite a while until both could calm down enough. Smiling broadly at each other, the black haired shabby looking boy stretched his hand out to the red haired girl in the neat dress: " I am Severus Snape. Pleased to meet you."

She shook his hand:" Likewise. My name is Lilly Evans."

XXX

XXX

And from that day on, Severus had made his first friend ever in his whole life and it was amazing.

"What is this?" Lilly asked curious. Not that is was peculiar for her to be curious, she was always like that and asked Severus a lot of question. But he did not mind. She was nearly always happy too.

And when she was around, he could feel what he had lacked the three two years. Happiness.

Severus looked up from his book.

Three days had passed since their first meeting. On that day, they had talked until late in the evening. He had told her that she was a witch and he a wizard. That they will go to Hogwarts and learn to control their magic. And she had asked him a lot of questions he had tried to answer as best as he could.

"Good morning.", noticing that she did not look at the book he asked slightly puzzled: "What do you mean?"

She put her rucksack down and started to search through it, not looking at him as she answered: "Your belt and the pouch. What exactly is this? The silver looks like its always flowing into new forms and I think they do change." she retrieved a box from her rucksack, continuing to speak: "And I have seen you pulling out a book from this pouch that could never have fitted in it.". She took out two tasty looking sandwiches from the box and held one out to him:"Is it enchanted?"

Hungrily he accepted the sandwich from her: "Yes.", and took a huge bite.

She looked him over with a concerned expression: "Do you even eat anything at home?"

"Sometimes.", he managed to say between two bites, to calm her nerves he added: "Children my age need to eat a lot, besides your sandwiches are great. Never waste good foot."

He did eat at home from time to time but only if no one was there and if there even was something left for him. He knew his mother saved him food every evening. But apart from that his parents had stopped communicating with him and most times he was grateful for that. His wonderful father had mastered this ignorance to a point were he even ignored the fact that Severus still needed something to eat. Often when he crept to the kitchen at night he found the bowl with food his mother had saved him empty in the sink. Then he grabbed whatever was there and left the house, adding another favor to his list he will return one day to the old drunken idiot.

Finished with his breakfast, he looked at Lilly who was still eating: "Thanks", he smiled, "Now about the pouch...", he opened it easily and reached inside only to retrieve a book from it nearly the moment he had touched the inside. He repeated the action and with each time took out another much too large book for the small pouch. When he finished, 15 books were piled up right in front of him. He looked at Lilly and had to bite back a laugh. The girl was sitting in front of him with her half eaten sandwich forgotten between her fingers, her eyes stared wide in wonder and excitement at the pile of books, her mouth agape.

When he chuckled, she seemed to wake from her rigor and sighed happily: "I love magic."

It took only half a sandwich for her to find her curiosity back and she started to flood Severus with a number of questions: "How does it work? Can you put anything in it? How much can it hold? Does it get heavier the more you put in? How do you find anything in it again? Where did you get it?"

"Easy there, Lilly.", he laughed. " I have no idea how many things are already in there and I take them out by thinking of the object I want to retrieve. Well actually, I thought about the school of magic and retrieved anything related to it each time I put my hand into the pouch. One time it was a cauldron and the other time it was a birdcage but mostly it were books." He opened the belt and held it out to her. "You wanna try it?"

The moment she took it, a surprised look appeared on her face:" It does not weight anything at all." She inspected it carefully, tracing the silver lines with one finger and turning it slowly around in her hands. Finally she tried to open the pouch and was stunned when she could not open it right away. She knew it was not hard. She tried it a second and a third time, but the small pouch did not budge.

"I can't"

Severus had leaned forward whilst he observed her.

That was definitely new to him. Why couldn't she open it? He never had any trouble before.

"May I?", he asked and took the belt from her fingers. Concerned, he tried to open it and the pouch allowed him access to its contents immediately. "That is strange.", he muttered.

"Where did you get it?", Lilly asked with a hint of nervousness in her voice.

He paused for a moment, not wanting to tell her about the night when the woman in the cellar had given it to him. The night he had understood how weak she really was. Technically the pouch had belonged to...

"My grandfather. It had been his."

She looked at him: "Do you think he spelled it so that only you can open it?"

"Dunno.", he hastily stored the books back in the pouch, "Maybe."

Never. I bet he does not even know about me. Would he even care?

He stood up.

"I have to go. See you."

"What? Why?", Lilly asked confused.

"Can't be helped. Sorry."

He turned around and went down the streets leading to Spinner's End, where he passed the house of his parents without even one glance at it. He did not wish to return there now. He had to think first.

XXX

XXX

"I need to talk to you."

Another two days had passed. The small boy stepped around the corner into the dimly litted kitchen. He was soaked wet from the rain outside but did not care about it. In the last three years he had grown use to any kind of weather.

The woman on the sink flinched and spun around.

"Severus! Where have you been? You were gone for five days!"

Tears started to swell in her eyes.

As if you would search for me.

He ignored the emotional outburst, disgusted by her display of weakness.

Concealing his emotions deep behind his black eyes, he looked at her with a blank expression. His voice was cold and smooth when he commanded: "Tell me about my grandfather."

She did not react at first, simply stared at him with wide eyes. Then slowly, she repeated his words: "Tell... you … about... your... grandfather?"

"Yes." he snarled, "my grandfather, Severus Prince, your father. Tell me about him!"

"But...", she asked puzzled,"Why?"

He approached her slowly, his cold black eyes locked with hers whilst he spoke in a barely audible whisper:" One might think it is only natural for a child to know about his family. One might, but of course, not you. Now tell me, is he still alive? Where can I find him?"

She titled her heat still wearing a bewildered expression on the face. Severus waited patiently for an answer but in vain. The woman before him just continued to stare in wonder.

Growing more and more impatient, he hissed:" Answer me!"

Slowly realization sank into the black eyes of the woman, but when she spoke, her voice sounded far away: " I don't know. I haven't seen him for over ten years. He banished me and forbade me to ever return. I don't know if he..."

He expected her to start to cry again like she did nearly every day lately but was genuinely surprised when her gaze that had been fixed on him became unfocused, deeply lost in thought.

"Of course", he sighed, "I should have expected something like that."

I should have expected that you are once again incapable of helping your own blood.

He walked to the door and when he turned the door knob, he heard a whisper from behind:" You are so much like him."

XXX

XXX

"When do we get the letter?"

"At the age of eleven"

"And you are sure we will get one?"

"Yes, of course. It is all described in the book I lend you. Haven't you read it yet?"

"I did. But I still can't believe it. We are going to become a witch and a wizard."

"Yes. And we will be very good at it. And powerful."

"So we can protect the weak."

"So we can protect ourselves and whoever else we choose to protect."

" I can't wait to get my letter."

"Me neither."

Lets see if this works. I a using another program to write this down. It took until Monday morning to write this and I am sorry, the next chapter wont be there on the next Monday. I dont have a lot of time and wont be able to write it this week. But it will be updated soon enough. Hope you can enjoy this one.

Thanks to Arya Slitherin for some interesting ideas. :)