Severus reappeared at King's Cross Station with another crack and with narrowed eyes, he looked around before going to the loo to quickly change his Head Boy badge into the stand-in Prefect's, which he personally liked more. Upon seeing the three golden arrows pointing at the Snake, Badger and Raven, he then smiled and passed through the Platform 9 's barrier.

"There he is!" Hubbubs of voices immediately entered his ears and Severus winced; this was why he hated any sudden attention! He knew the light in the students' eyes were benevolent but his paranoia involuntarily spiked up, already sensing there were some people who wouldn't be satisfied with the news.

Well, he would play along to their ignorance. It was for his own safety, too.

"I'm afraid you lot got the wrong man," he said simply to the small crowd around him, pointedly staring at his disguised badge. He could barely hold his smirk when he saw their crestfallen faces.

"B- But…" a blond boy mumbled out. Severus recognized him as one of his Slytherin charges last year, Morris Maddock and soured. There were plenty of other students they could look up to, and Severus only did what was supposed to be done; nothing more, nothing less.

"Be glad that I'm still the stand-in Prefect, will you?" he snapped and climbed into the Hogwarts Express, quickly searching for his regular compartment. Much to his annoyance, everyone in the train began expressing congratulatory speeches to him as he walked along the corridors and he seriously hated such buzzing noise, especially when the back of his head began to throb in pain.

"SILENCE!" he shouted, to which they all fell quiet with eyes wide in fear. "For the last time, I'm NOT the Head Boy! Can't you just wait for Dumbledore announce it? I'm in need of a rest right now, so drop your questions and get into your coaches!"

Entering the usual coach, Severus then put up the 'Don't Disturb' sign on the doors, putting up some silencing spells and lowered down the curtains before lying on the velvet seats, sighing as he massaged his head. No doubt he would be invited to Professor Slughorn's compartment for the Slug Club's breakfast party later on and he groaned to himself.

How he wished Dumbledore had given the position to someone else. But at the same time, he couldn't help but to revel in their possible reactions by the time they noticed they had been pranked. Taking out his hazel wand, he then set up an alarm before falling into a short sleep.

Lily Evans wondered just who her partner for the Head Students could be.

She had joined the Marauders on their journey to Hogwarts, and was quite surprised to see James Potter sulking in his seat while his three friends gave him sympathetic looks.

"At least it hadn't been Snivellus," Sirius Black said as he tore open a Chocolate Frog and bit it, "Heard the last Head Boy from the Snakes was a menace."

Remus Lupin frowned, "I'm sure whoever he was; he would do his job well. And besides, he might come over to Professor Slughorn's breakfast club. Right, Lily?"

Lily only blinked. "Huh, I guess that's true." She then glanced at the red collars around James and Sirius' necks and thought hard of what led to their unfortunate capture by the Ministry of Magic. "So, you lot became Animagi to help Remus?"

At this, the four boys grinned. "Yeah, werewolves won't hurt Animagi. Quite a nice disguise to have too; never knew when you wish you were one."

Lily's green eyes glinted in mischief. "Can you teach me?"

The five of them then spent time poring over James' battered Transfiguration book, and Lily seriously couldn't wait to practice and learn of her animal side. Just what she could be? She fancied herself as graceful and joyful, so perhaps some kind of bird?

Her wand alerted of the time she supposed to go to Professor Slughorn's coach, and she and James went there with her heart thumped, wanting to know of her mysterious partner.

"Ah, Miss Evans and Mr. Potter!" the Potions teacher greeted them with his familiar jovial smile, "I heard you two are the new Lions' couple, and Head Students to boot! Come in!"

Only for his face to fall upon noticing only Lily had the Head Girl badge on.

"Huh, that's strange," Slughorn muttered wonderingly, "I would've thought Mr. Snape would be the Head Boy, but he had denied it. No matter, Albus sure would tell us later."

Much to Lily's surprise, the Head Boy ended up not joining the Slug Club's breakfast group. However, she quickly noted that Severus Snape was still the honorary Prefect, and the Slytherin boy was currently chatting with Regulus Black about the younger teen's O.W.L results.

"I'd like to be a Healer," Regulus said, "My mother kinds of frowned upon that idea, but what do you think?"

Severus- no, Snape- stroked his chin thoughtfully, "I'd say your mother needs to open her eyes. Even I want to be a Potions Master, and not many have held that title." He then nodded briefly to Slughorn who returned the gesture with a wink.

When the meeting for Prefects came up, Lily bade goodbye to James and went to the Prefects' compartment; Snape was on her tail and practically ignored her. Again, the Head Boy was nowhere to be seen and she had to distribute the patrol schedules for the rest of the Prefects alone.

Frowning as she went back to the compartment she shared with the Marauders, she wondered if the Headmaster ended up not even choosing anyone for the position.

And if he had, well the candidate he had chosen certainly was good at acting.

Albus Dumbledore only wanted the best for his students.

They were still young children who deserved the time to learn more about their world, not getting prepared for a war. And speaking of war…

He wondered just what had happened in summer; there hadn't been many attacks made by the so-called Death Eaters. Was Tom planning a secret ambush in the nearest future? Even from what he managed to hear from some of the spies in the Ministry, there weren't any rushes or blackmails made to gain whatever position that the opposite side deemed important.

It was as if… Tom had gone again, and he didn't know what to think of it.

As he watched the children enter the Great Hall for the Welcoming Feast, he smiled and his ice blue eyes trailed after the group of six Slytherin boys, with one of them was scowling over what his friends seemed to say. He frowned when seeing the grimace on Severus Snape's face but upon taking a closer look at the boy, he almost chuckled; so that was the game he played. Well, it was about time a good-natured prank was bound to happen.

The Sorting was as eventful as ever, and he clapped for every time a House received new students. He noted that Slytherin had gained quite a number of new students and wondered if Snape's efforts last year played a factor to it.

As it was, he turned out to be correct upon seeing the students whispering to each other and pointed at Snape, who already was reading one of his books. The new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher was almost as decent as last year's had been, and Albus hoped there wouldn't be any terrible catastrophe happen this year too.

"Let me introduce you to our Head Girl for this year: Miss Lily Evans from Gryffindor," he said, to which the Lions' table clapped while the redheaded girl gave a short bow to the crowd. The three other Houses only nodded out of obligations.

He then remained quiet, even ignoring the puzzled looks of his colleagues.

Evidently, the students were getting impatient and one of them asked out loud, "Professor Dumbledore, who's the Head Boy?"

Albus briefly glanced at Snape, who simply quirked his eyebrow and he almost broke his act right there. 'Oh well, let's just get it over with,' he thought.

"The Head Boy for this year is…" he paused dramatically, taking in the interested looks in the students' visages, "…Mr. Severus Snape, from Slytherin House."

There was a long beat of silence.

Someone then called up, "Snape, you bastard!" and before Albus knew it, the entire Great Hall erupted into loud applauses and shouts of joy. When he looked over the Slytherin table, he saw Snape's peers were giving him friendly shoves and pats before the boy Transfigured back his badge and bowed to the crowd with a weak smile.

Yes, he really had made the right choice. Although, his heart twinge when he saw James Potter and his friends were gritting their teeth in disbelief at Snape, while Lily Evans' eyes were wide in shock.

But, what else was new? Albus only wished the children would enjoy their school years.

"Wake up, Salazar."

The kind voice called out to the King of Snakes like a siren, and it blearily blinked its yellow eyes open before venturing out of its resting place and stretched its long body all the while. It certainly had been a nice sleep.

Seeing the new master's closed eyes made it frown, however. How it wished it could see his eyes, though it quickly brushed the thought away. It was already hard enough to find any surviving lineage of the great master's, and it wouldn't dare to be picky. Besides, Severus Prince had been wonderful; it knew he was capable of both love and violence.

Would it be wrong to think of him as a reincarnation of the great master?

"How do you feel?" he greeted as he swiped his hand over its body.

It drank in all the sensation and warmth he offered, "It was great, Master."

He simply hummed and sat down on the floor before patting its head. "Remember the armor project I told you of?"

It flicked out its tongue in anticipation with a nod.

"Marvolo is helping me too," he said and its head perked up when he continued, "Do you want to see him?"

The great snake blinked. "…Can I?" it asked timidly, wondering just how Severus would let it see the master.

"It's just a picture, but I hope it will work well," he replied. "Close your eyes."

Heeding his words, it then waited eagerly as the new master perused through his satchel to find the photograph. Time certainly had passed by, and it pondered on how the master looked like now. Was he still young as it remembered him, or did he already have beards like the great master?

"Here," Severus said and it slowly opened its eyes, tail briefly twitched in joy upon seeing the picture in his hand.

Both Lord Voldemort and Severus Prince were standing next to each other, hand resting on the other's shoulder and the joyful yet comforting glint in their eyes was more than lovely. The King of Snakes quickly made the comparison that while Lord Voldemort had a serpentine visage (very fitting due to his lineage); Severus was akin of a bird just like his spectral pet raven.

The Snake and the Raven.

What a fine duo they would be.

"Do you like it?" Severus asked and subconsciously ran his other hand on its head, "We went to America for that; recreating the great master's wand just for him."

The great snake turned to him in utter disbelief. "Does it work?"

He simply chuckled, "Don't tell you didn't have faith in him? One of your old horns was used for the wand's core, you know. I'd imagine he was having fun with it at the moment."

The King of Serpents felt a rush of appreciation ran along its body and smiled before gently rested its head on his lap with closed eyes; what it wouldn't do to have the great master back. But Severus Prince's presence had been enough to satiate its longing for now and it would cherish the moments it had with him before he would leave, joining Lord Voldemort's side in the future.

Bellatrix Lestrange didn't know what to make of the Dark Lord at the moment.

The meeting between his Inner Circle had ended just then, and she remained in her seat watching as the powerful man twirled a wand in his hand. The item looked new too, and she wondered where he had gotten it from. Was it connected to his frequent disappearance during summer?

"Bella," he called, his red eyes were glazed.

Feeling curious, she went to his side, eyes still trailing over the new wand. "My Lord," she bowed down to the man. Ever since she heard and saw the proof that he was the heir of the great Salazar Slytherin, she was willing to follow the man to the end to the world. Why, his noble efforts to restore the wizarding world to its glory had been more than everyone could have asked from him!

"I have a new recruit in mind," Lord Voldemort said, and she listened carefully. "You may think of him as a… lowly half-blood but I assure you he isn't. And I'd guess you already knew of him."

Bellatrix blinked. No, surely her ears hadn't heard wrong. Though, she supposed it was inevitable; Regulus had regaled the Black family with the tales about the Snape boy ever since the blood-traitor Sirius had been castrated by the Muggles thanks to his indirect actions. And for a brief moment, she wondered if killing Muggles left and right would worth it; their punishments certainly had been both cruel and entertaining in recent years!

"If you think he will do great for our causes, then I have no objections, my Lord," was all she could say.

Bellatrix Lestrange always thought of herself as a prowling tiger, fierce and protective of her master. And if Severus Snape even dared to break her Lord's trust, there would be hell for him.