Amanda

Welcome travelers! You found my story. This is now the third version of the story.

After the fifth book came out, the story was meant to be an attempt to explain why Snape had had a change of heart and was working for Dumbledore. I was right, it was love. Although I didn't connect it with Lily.

I appreciate Lily and Snape's story but think he would have been better off with a different girl/woman. I just don't like people who see a good friend following the wrong path and then just walk away from him, marry his rival and start a family. I won't cut Lily out of his life, (I respect the story too much for that) but I will change it and give him a partner worthy of him. So there will be no Snape/Lily and definitely no Snape/Hermione in this Story. Just Snape and OFC.

Ok now that I lost 90% of potential readers, who might have been interested in this story, let's get started. Oh, and yeah, the characters don't belong to me.

If anyone would volunteer to beta me I would be glad. Unfortunately, non of the people I asked answered me.

Enjoy!

Hogwarts

Amanda Penthesilea Hill shivered. This first September was far too cold for her liking. She watched impatiently as a line of second years and their parents loaded their trunks onto the Hogwarts Express, locking the door. If only they would hurry. Not that she was particularly keen on her fourth year, no, the thought of it made her feel rather nauseous, but the compartments of the train were warm and that was the most important thing.

"Excuse me Miss?...Amy!?"

Amanda turned to the voice and recognized her best friend, Charlie Weasley. He shook his head in confusion and then blinked a few times quickly.

"Are you okay?" Amy asked, grinning.

"I..." he stared at her briefly: "I just thought you were... never mind.", then he laughed: "Why are you still standing here? It's too cold, isn't it?"

Amy giggled to cover her bitterness, then gestured towards the door, "The door is blocked. And I didn't feel like walking to the end of the train. Where's your family?" She looked around the platform searchingly. The Weasleys always got to the train together, but now they were nowhere to be seen.

Charlie shrugged and together they walked to one of the doors, where the crowd gradually dispersed. "Fred is sick and infected Ron, so Mom stayed home with the little ones. And Dad just rushed us to the cordon because he was busy at the office."

Amy considered briefly: "One of the twins?" She and Charlie were good friends but apart from Bill, who was with them at Hogwarts, they didn't have many points of contact with his family, so she didn't quite know how to classify his siblings. Although she had often been invited by Charlie's mother to visit them during the holidays, Amy's parents had always been against it.

Charlie nodded and helped her get the suitcase onto the train, "Yes, Fred and George are the twins and Ron is the youngest."

Together they looked for a compartment and shortly after they had made themselves comfortable there, their friend Sally joined them.

"Hey, how was your vacation?" she asked as she slumped into one of the seats.

Charlie's experiences were briefly described. He had spent the holidays at home playing Quidditch with his siblings. Sally had been to Spain with her parents and returned tanned and with a hundred little braids in her hair.

"You visited your father, didn't you? How did you manage to keep your pathological pallor in South America?" Charlie asked with a grin and looked at Amanda.

Amy brushed her long blond hair away from her face, pathologically pale was really an exaggeration. She was a light sky type. She was about to say something when Sally laughed, "She must have been wearing sunblock all the time. Honestly, Amanda, if you're not tanned as me, you should at least be crimson."

Amy sighed. "Not South America, he's been based in Africa for two years and I haven't been there at all. I spent the holidays with my mother."

Her two friends were silent for a moment as the train slowly set into motion. Amanda had been looking forward to spending her vacations with her father, who worked as a healer somewhere down south (whether in America or Africa). Obviously, that hadn't worked.

"But you have..."

Amy tiredly raised her hand to interrupt Sally: "He didn't have time, okay? Instead, I was with Mom and spent the summer under a heavy cloud cover and with yet another unpleasant houseguest," she grumbled.

"Oh dear, does she have such awkward friends?" Charlie asked, "It was that old Aunty Bathilda last year, wasn't it? Was she back?"

"Worse, our esteemed Headmaster and Professor Snape," Amy said flatly.

Charlie and Sally didn't know much about Amy's mother, in fact, they had never seen her before. In her freshman year, her father Lazarus, who shared Amy's blond hair and dark blue eyes, had gotten her on the train. According to Amy, her mother worked in education, so it wasn't news that she'd run into her teachers at home during the holidays.

"Oh man, if you don't even have peace at home..." moaned Charlie.

Amy shrugged, "Has its perks too. I'm mostly overlooked. And if I just sit quietly in a corner with my book, they even forget to send me out of the room when they have something important to talk about. I think their conversations will give me an especially good grade on my Potions essay." She grinned broadly.

"Well, I don't know, I'd rather be bad at Potions and it's not like you need it. Snape doesn't give his favorite student a bad grade." Charlie said.

Amanda grimaced in disgust and was about to say something when the compartment door opened and Charlie's older brother Bill walked in. "Hey, this wand was in front of your compartment, does this belong to one of you?" he asked, holding up the wand.

"Mine." Amanda said tiredly.

Bill looked at her and for a brief moment it looked like he had bumped into a brick wall, then he handed her the wand. He looked her straight in the eyes.

"Thanks," she said, breaking eye contact.

"How can you lose your wand and not notice it?" Sally asked in disbelief.

"I'll be off then," Bill mumbled and left.

Amanda shrugged, "That's the way I am." She hated that thing. All this wand-waving seemed so silly to her and she wasn't good at it either. It was not for nothing that potions was her strongest subject, the magic wand was only used sporadically and in theory not at all.

"I was in Diagon Alley and brought you this." Amy's nanny had come into her room and handed her a box. "You'll need this if you go to Hogwarts in September."

Amy took it and opened it, "I thought the wand had to choose me, why are you bringing me one you chose?" she asked, frowning.

The nanny sat down next to her on the padded windowsill: "Oh sweety, no wand in the world would choose you and you know why. But you'll need one for Hogwarts." She pulled a book out of her bag: "I bought that too, some basics on how to handle the wand, maybe you'll practice a little bit."

Grumbling, she stowed the wand in her pocket and then decided to watch the landscape go by while Charlie and Sally started a game of wizard chess.

She only emerged from her thoughts when Sally said, "Tell me, doesn't your brother start school this year?"

Charlie shook his head, "Not until next year, but he's already afraid of being sorted into Slytherin."

"Unlikely, right?"

Charlie looked at Sally and shrugged, then shifted his gaze to Amanda.

"Don't even ask," she warned, but of course, that didn't stop him.

"Where were you when we were sorted into houses?"

"In the hospital wing. I wasn't feeling well on the trip and McGonagall brought the hat to me." Every year the same. Every year Charlie asked and every year Amanda told the same lie. Whether he knew it was a lie, she couldn't say, but he seemed to suspect it. For the moment, however, he didn't ask any more questions.

It was getting darker outside and clouds were gathering. The train pulled into Hogsmeade station and puffed to a halt. Amanda, Charlie, and Sally got out and struggled through the crowd of students to reach the carriages. A huge man stood in the crowd and called the first years to him.

"Hello, Hagrid!" Charlie called. The man looked around for a moment and then raised his hand in greeting, but immediately started to lead the little ones back to the boats.

As the carriages began to move, they could see the small lights of the boats that had just covered the first few meters across the water.

When they got to the castle, they immediately went into the great hall and sat down at the Gryffindor table. The teachers were already mostly assembled and talking.

"Miss Hill, please come with me!" McGonagall had come over to them and was looking at Amanda expectantly.

"What have I done now?" she asked stubbornly.

"You'll find out if you come with me.", she said, her voice harsh.

Amanda jumped when she heard that and sheepishly left the room with her professor.

After about ten minutes she was back and sat silently next to Sally.

"Did she take points from you?" Charlie asked.

"For what? I haven't done anything." Amanda asked mockingly, holding up a piece of paper. Sally snatched it out of her hand and let it go for a moment.

"That's just your father's confirmation that you're allowed to go to the village this year," she said, almost disappointed and at the same time pleased, because last year she wasn't allowed to go.

"I knew I forgot something, Dad sent it to her." Amanda confirmed.

That's when Charlie nudged her, a little harder than he thought he would because he was immediately elbowed in his side.

"Ouch. Look who's coming!" he said. Amanda looked at the teacher's table. Snape, the Potions Master had just walked into the hall, his eyes scanning the great hall. For a moment he looked Amanda straight in the eyes. It was hard to interpret what that look was saying. It wasn't hateful, nor was he hostile in the way he looked at most of the students who weren't in his home, but there was something that... no, that couldn't be. Amanda met his gaze. She was too proud to look down, but then the moment was over.

"Uh, I hate that guy." Amanda shuddered.

"He must have noticed that. Your gaze couldn't get any colder, could it?" Sally asked: "Please never look at me like that."

"He was a Death Eater.", Charlie grumbled, "Why is he allowed to teach here? He should be in Azkaban!"

Sally agreed. "There are still followers just waiting for you-know-who to come back. They still commit murders. Did you read the Daily Prophet last week? Two Ministry officials caught three Death Eaters about to execute a bunch of Muggles. It's not over yet. And Snape sure is one of those just waiting for their chance."

Amanda shook her head back and forth, "I don't think so. He wouldn't be here if Dumbledore weren't convinced that he is no threat. Also, as much as I hate to admit it, he's not a bad teacher."

Sally looked at her blankly: "I've never learned anything from him."

Amy nodded once, "I can tell that by your grades."

Her friend snorted. Charlie preferred to stay out of the discussion. Snape hated him like everyone else, but his grades in Potions were similar to Amanda's.

Sallys looked at her friend with narrowed eyes: "Oh really? Your grades are worse than mine in every subject except Potions."

"It's not me, it's the wand's fault." Amanda hissed, her eyes twinkling.

Charlie got ready to intervene. The two were friends, good ones even. But this topic always pitted them against each other. And Sally was basically right. Amanda was bad at practice in most subjects. That she could even pull off a spell properly was a miracle. And yet she always insisted that the wand was to blame.

"Yeah!" Sally sneered loudly, "If the farmer can't swim, it's his swimming trunks!"

Amanda jumped up. Arms hanging loosely at her sides, almost relaxed but Charlie could see her fists clenched.

"Say that again," she hissed.

"Amy..." Charlie tried to intervene. But at that moment, Bill was with them. He hadn't been sitting far from them and as a prefect, it was his duty to intervene.

"What's this all about?", he placed himself between the girls "Amy, sit down!"

Amanda snorted again and then turned away, only to drop back into her seat. She observed the teacher's table to see if she was in trouble. McGonagall was arguing with Dumbledore and didn't notice her. But then she realized that Snape's eyes were on her again. Briefly, she considered making a rude gesture in his direction, but that would have gotten her nothing but trouble. She was pushed aside a bit roughly when Bill sat down between her and Sally.

To her surprise, he gave her a friendly smile. But they couldn't talk because now Dumbledore had stood up to greet them all.

TBC