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I
Beginning
Severus Snape was not a man known for being patient, gentle, or nice. But it's well known that rules always have their exceptions, and his exception consisted of two specific women who happened to be the most important people in his life; those whom he loved the most.
...
Juliana was first.
She met him on his last year at Hogwarts. She was an exchange student from Brazil who as soon as she got there, began to get treated like everyone's new favorite toy. He found that special treatment utterly annoying and absolutely idiotic; just because she wasn't from there didn't mean she deserved everyone's undivided attention.
He didn't know she felt exactly the same.
She got sorted into Hufflepuff, which became the main reason he decided to completely ignore her. She, on the other side, could not bring herself to not think about him. Once she laid her eyes on him, she knew every other boy in the school had become irrelevant.
They never shared classes and for that he was grateful. It was not entirely because of her and how annoying he found the way she was being practically worshipped by her housemates, but because he never liked Hufflepuffs. They were weak, dumb, and absolutely disposable. He never saw the point to that house apart from the fact that it reunited all the garbage other houses didn't want. For him being sorted into Hufflepuff was worse than being sorted into Gryffindor; it meant you just weren't good enough. Added to that was the fact that he could not walk through a hallway without listening someone talking about her, which made him be aware of her existence when he wasn't interested on it.
Of course it didn't take long to Juliana to realize the treatment her house received. But above any other house, the people in Slytherin were always making fun of them and treating them as if they were dirt. She was angry, yes, but in no little time she learned to ignore them like all her housemates did.
It may have sounded cliché, but they were just not worth her time.
...
The first time they talked was in a greenhouse. Juliana loved spending time there because it reminded her of her home. Education in Brazil was very different, and she liked to think that all this was a big adventure. For starters, they didn't use a wand. Kid's magical abilities showed up when they were little and they usually started their magical training when they were about five years old, around the time they were supposed to start preschool.
Another big difference was the fact that they were very close to the "muggle" society (God, she loathed that word), and they studied their school subjects as well. She was so used to consider magical and non-magical people as equals that the concept that it wasn't like that on this place was very hard for her to completely understand.
On the opposite side of the greenhouse entrance, bowl on her hands, she was carefully working with a plant. That's why she didn't hear him enter, and he didn't hear her speaking until he had already started walking to where she was, still oblivious to her presence.
"You are so pretty. I love how they take care of you here. I promise I'm only taking one, that's all I need." Her voice was low and sweet, as if talking to a small child, and he walked faster until he finally found the source of the sound. She was carefully removing one petal from what looked like a small red flower.
And she was talking to it.
Why would she talk to a plant? Was she stupid?
"What are you doing?" Severus asked slowly, almost without realizing it. He didn't even know what had made him be bold enough to even try to talk to her, but he couldn't help but be curious. If she was actually talking to a plant she had to be more of an idiot than he assumed when she got sorted.
Said thought was only reinforced when he paid attention to her messy appearance: her tie was being used to keep her hair from falling, she was barefoot and her shirt was rumpled and out of her skirt. For a second Severus thought she could pass for a homeless muggle.
At the sound of his voice, she jumped and brought her hand to her chest.
"Jesus, you nearly gave me a heart attack." She tried to joke but he didn't laugh, making her roll her eyes. "I'm allowed to be here, I have a note." She said before taking a piece of parchment out of her pocket and waving it with her hand in front of his face. He didn't realize he had moved closer.
"I didn't mean that, I mean why were you talking to a plant?" Her eyebrows shot up and her eyes widened.
"You're joking right?" His serious face showed that he wasn't, and she frowned. "Aren't you Severus Snape? Professor Sprout told me you were good at Potions, and her best Herbology student. I guess you're not that good." She whispered mostly to herself with a dry laugh and turned again to her bowl, picking it with the rest of her stuff.
His face quickly morphed into disbelief and he barely resisted the urge to scream at her that she was as stupid as he knew she'd be. She put her shoes on and tried to walk past him, but he grabbed her arm to stop her. They were really close now, and her heart was beating so fast she thought it was going to pop out of her chest.
"What's that supposed to mean?" He questioned gritting his teeth.
"First." She said removing his hand from her arm and freeing herself, even though for some unknown reason he didn't want to let her go. "If you ever grab me like that again I swear I'll make you regret it." She hissed dangerously, looking at him dead in the eye. He took a step back once he realized how close they were, and instantly looked at her with disdain.
"Second..." She added and took a deep breath, the angry look beginning to disappear from her face. "And just because I'm a good person and I know you're excellent at potions... and yes, I may have been just trying to piss you off before..." She said sounding a bit annoyed while searching on her bag for something, while Severus looked at her with a confused frown. "Umm... no, no, not this one, no…" He quickly noticed she was talking to herself. "Aha! Here we go." She said smiling as she pulled a book from her bag. "This is the only book I have in English that actually has some of what we learn in Brazil. I have tons of others that have the same things but they are on Portuguese, so you can keep this one. And before you ask: No. They can't be translated by any of your spells." She tried to hand him the book but he wouldn't take it, so she left it on the table. "I have to go, it's getting late. Read it, you'll see it probably has knowledge you've never heard of. Oh, and the answer to why was I talking to a plant is there." She said tapping the cover of the book twice with her index finger and smiled at him before leaving.
The entire situation had him so confused that he spent a few good minutes just standing there, trying to make some sense out of it.
What had just happened?
He looked at the book for some time before hesitantly putting it inside his bag and leaving, the original reason for his visit to the greenhouse completely forgotten.
