..

"Well done, Harry, my eyes do not deceive me; you'd be a brilliant Deputy Head of Slytherins!"

"...Um... Thank you for the compliment...?"

Despite his doubtful answer, the old Slytherin professor only smirked.

"If you look easy to those miscreants, they'll treat you like a doormat. They tell the whole house that it didn't hurt a bit when they were whacked by the new professor, and then all hell breaks lose. You see, even though they howl like they're dying on the desk, those little devils are back on their feet and flying around in a couple of days, even without going to the infirmary."

Harry made a wry face. "Such is the natural recovery of wizards, I understand."

"Ehmm. I have to warn you again, keep the kids strictly in line, especially in Potions. It gets a bit better as you get into older years' class, but there are some serious troublemakers, particularly in the lower years; and better be prepared to whip them brats to their tears right in the class... erm, I mean, be prepared to do some stern discipline starting in your first class. When you're working with pre-OWLs, there are so many troubles and mishaps that you can't even begin to figure out how the hell they did it. Even though you, as a natural at potions, might not understand it, Harry."

The young man couldn't help but smile wrily. A natural talent for potions was something that had never been with him as a student, but it was the second time he had heard it from this old professor. Not that Slughorn in front of him would know.

"Oh, I well understand, Horace, having personal experience with the potions disasters students create. I had a classmate with an exceptional talent in that field, as well as a couple of friends who sort of made a business out of it. If there were a course called the 'Defence Against the Potions Accidents,' I'd gladly teach it instead."

Slughorn's face lit up.

"Exactly! That's what we should teach to those little rascals. Just what I've repeatedly insisted in this school, Harry!"

The professor began to chat as if he had met an old friend.

..

..

..

September 1, 1975. A Compartment of Hogwarts Train.

..

"What's on your mind, Lils? Why look so downcast?"

"Huh?"

Lily Evans, who had been deep in thought and saying nothing since she had returned to the compartment half an hour ago, snapped her head up and looked at her friend sitting across from her. The dark-eyed boy twisted his lips.

"Did that Lupin bastard do something cocky on you? Showing off, being a prefect?"

Lily frowned.

"What are you talking about? He was fine, quiet, without any troubles, like any other time. We did the patrol as prefects should, and parted. That's all."

"Without any spines, you mean. I don't know how the hell he got to be prefect. A prefect, out of a bunch of worst troublemakers who don't care a whit about the rules."

"That's a bit harsh, Severus. Lupin is, well, better than his friends."

The boy curled his lips.

"Dog shit, bird shit, horse shit. What kind of shit do you want me to serve you with, ma'am?"

The green-eyed girl burst out an involuntary laugh.

"Oh my God, Sev. You are the worst."

The boy didn't relax his expression, but he did subtly loosen his back. When the girl laughed, he felt as if his shoulders were stretched, as if his blood flowed faster.

"Well, if Lupin was being Lupin as usual, Lily, then why are you so bummed out? Come to think of it, you haven't said much since the train station this morning."

At the boy's question, Lily shrugged.

"I'm not depressed, it's just that my parents told me something over the summer, and I've been thinking about it."

"Hmm."

"Seriously, oh, what was it... something about how 'now you're old enough to understand-.'"

Lily rolled her eyes. The boy, Severus, kept silent. She was grateful for a friend like that. It was like he understood how dark and embarrassed she felt. Or maybe her friend was just repulsed by the word 'parents' and kept his mouth shut.

"You know what, Sev? My mum and dad met when they were fifteen and it was, like, love at first sight."

"..."

"So, they know it's a bit early, but... they think it's time for me to seriously give thought to it."

"To what?"

"...That is... a boyfriend... No, let's be blunt, a husband. Ewww!"

"..."

Glancing at the boy, whose eyes were wide in consternation, Lily sighed.

"Marriage prospects at fifteen? Oh, please! It's bloody nineteen-seventies, people go to the moon now! I don't know why Mum and Dad're acting like we're still living in World War era. And if they talk like that, seriously I'm not getting married until I'm thirty, being called an old maid or not!"

"...The idea that a woman of thirty is an old maid is an ignorant prejudice, typical of short-lived muggles."

Severus said expressionlessly. He couldn't show his expression, even as his mouth muttered something without permission of his frazzled brain.

Lily shrugged. "Try saying that to my sister. Tuney, she thinks a woman at that age should have at least two kids toddling after her."

"That's exactly why I don't plan on talking to your sister."

"...Right. I know your opinion of Tuney, very well."

Lily made a grimace. After those words, she remained silent for nearly an hour. As she continued to stare into her book, Severus couldn't bring himself to speak to her anymore and turned to his own reading, reluctantly.

After a long time, the girl eventually opened her mouth. Her green eyes were uncharacteristically calm, with a deeper look than usual.

"...You know, Sev. How are you doing in your dorm?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Well, of course you're a good student, you're talented, you're an absolute genius in some subjects, and... oh, stop it, your smirk looks silly, Severus! ... But I'm just saying that Slytherin house has a lot of people with nasty tempers. I know, 'cause Sev, your temper's pretty mean, too."

"...Wow, thanks for the compliment, girl."

"Sorry." Lily offered an apology that didn't contain a dram of sincerity, then put her fingertips against Severus' pouting mouth.

"It's just, they discriminate against muggle-borns a lot. I'm a Gryffindor, there's no discrimination in my house, but I've heard that in Slytherin there's a bunch of bitches who spout mudbloods in every sentence."

"..."

"But, you see? Slytherin doesn't have any muggle-born students, and I haven't really thought about it until now, but since they don't have any muggle-borns, do they perhaps bully you for being a half-blood, because that's what they usually do, people who have nothing but their blood to put their pride on?"

Severus blinked for a moment.

Not for the first time, he realized that his only friend was pretty dumb for being a genius, even though he had always known it. Admonishing him all the time that he needed to work on his social skills, to make more friends and to tame his temper, and she hadn't noticed in her four years at Hogwarts?

As a paternal Muggle half-blood, Severus Snape's position in the house was at the bottommost of the pecking order. With no family wealth to speak of, he had no choice but to swallow his pride and apply for a special tuition exemption for the poor of magical descent; the word of which, as is often the case in Slytherin house, had been spread in detail throughout the dorm in the first day of school.

In the tight and elaborate Slytherin hierarchy, there was only one who was even remotely close to Severus in rank, a squib-born girl who had entered Slytherin the previous year. And she had a pureblood cousin in Slytherin House who protected her, albeit minimally.

How bloody shitty! For a family to be so unusually generous as to not withhold their surname from an unholy squib offspring, and to even implicitly recognize their kinship! It simply sucked! With the girl who would normally be called a squib-spawn bitch and would have taken the lowest position in Slytherin being under the wings of her pureblood cousin, Snape was the only one left to be pecked.

Severus' own father was a full Muggle, not even a muggle-born wizard. And his mother had been disowned so could not claim her pureblood status. Moreover, he had no relatives in the Prince family who had recently attended Hogwarts with whom he might have been able to seek connections.

All in all, all he had to protect himself was his good grades and his potions talent. A talent that his peers, and even those beneath him, made use of, and took advantage of.

But there was no way in hell he confessed that in front of Lily. Truly, Severus was grateful that she was so blind.

"...No way. In Slytherin, over a third of the students are classified as half-bloods. How can you discriminate half-bloods when there's such a large percentage of them? You know, two of the six Slytherin prefects are half-bloods."

Severus didn't mention that they were two of the respectable half-bloods, with a father from an old pureblood family and a muggleborn witch mother whose magic had been proven to be extraordinary from her youth, and who had no pureblood half-siblings, cementing their place as heirs to their families. The place of half-bloods in the hierarchy of wizarding society was wide and varied, up and down a large scale. And to lump his position in with the two prefects as the same 'half-bloods' was absurd enough to make him laugh at himself. But Lily, the naive, wouldn't know that.

A Half-blood. A lowest-class half-breed with a muggle father. Girls could at least change their social status by marriage, but as a man, you couldn't. You can't escape this flaw of blood until you die, and if you marry, you'll pass the cursed muggle surname on to your wife and children.

Ah, wonder if we'll actually get a couple of mudbloods in Slytherin this year, Severus thought, as the improbable hope flashed through his mind.

He smiled at Lily. "Come on, stop worrying about silly stuffs and tell me something useful. Did anything interesting happen at the prefects' meeting?"

"Ugh. Now that seventh year Gryffindor Robinson graduated... I guess I expected that, but yeah, I'm the only muggleborn among the prefects."

Lily gave him a complicated look. Severus's dark eyes shone deep.

"So you are special, Lily, I knew it."

"...Out of a thousand students at Hogwarts, there are over a hundred muggleborns, and only one was appointed prefect. The total number of student leaders is twenty-six, thirty if you count the Quidditch captains. Doesn't that give you any ideas, Sev?"

"Of course, that you're amazing."

His answer came out without a moment's hesitation. Lily raised her eyes to the ceiling.

"Really, Sev, that's not the point, you dunderhead!"

Severus pursed his lips together.

"...Lily, to be called dumb by you... Well, it's a bit of a blow."

Bam!

Severus stroked his shin grimly. Mmm. He was prepared for this. For being blind, the girl was annoyingly perceptive when he underhandedly called her names.

...