Severus was eleven years old, and his life was almost unrecognizable from it once had been. It was summer again, and he and Petunia were finishing their last garden for the day.
They worked together well.
Their age difference, and Petunia's more reserved personality, had kept their friendship from rivalling the intensity of the friendship Severus had once had with Lily, but it was nice all the same.
Lily and Severus had never become friends in this life. Unlike last time, Lily had gotten close with the preppy, popular clique at school. She tolerated Severus as the weird, loner friend of her older sister, but nothing more.
Severus had not opened up to her about being a wizard, either.
Petunia had mentioned magic to her, in passing. From what Severus could tell, Lily suspected, but was not entirely convinced that it was real, but was more concerned about what her popular friends thought of her than whether or not she had special powers.
Her priorities were baffling to Severus. He could not imagine a timeline or universe where magic would not be the most important thing in his life. It had the power to change everything.
Lily, he supposed, was happy with how her life was now, and did not want to risk that change, no matter how spectacular it could prove to be.
The concept of being so content was utterly foreign.
Severus always had a goal he was working towards. Hell, he always had more than one. He had never been satisfied with the hand life had dealt him, not even when he and Lily had been at their closest.
He'd always wanted more.
Wiping his hands on his trousers, Severus helped Petunia load up their repainted red wagon with their gardening tools and began the walk home. Petunia, being older and taller, kept stride with him easily.
They chatted about their plans for the next day's yards and Petunia excitedly told Severus about her family's plans to visit the coast for the weekend.
They were almost home when Severus was accosted by a magnificent owl as he approached the ramshackle little house that he still could not help but loathe.
Petunia gasped. "Is that your Hogwarts letter?"
Her dull, muted aura pulsed with excitement.
"I can't think of anyone else who'd write to me," Severus said, stroking the bird reverently and retrieving its cargo.
The bird nipped at his ear and held still dutifully for Petunia as she gently stroked its head.
"It's from Hogwarts," Severus confirmed, swelling with pride despite knowing his acceptance was a foregone conclusion. Old insecurities died hard.
Petunia's smile faded. "I'm going to miss you."
"I'll write to you," Severus promised. "I showed you where the Wizarding Post Office is; they'll accept muggle money for a small conversion fee. Or you could buy your own owl. You have enough magic that it'll listen to you. I'll be back for the summer, so we'll need to keep in touch for business purposes, anyways."
Petunia sighed. "I just know Lily's going to get a letter, too. She's special at everything."
"You might not have enough magic to use a wand properly, but there are still some magical things you can do," Severus said. "I'll look for some introductory books on potions and runes when I go buy my school supplies. Don't try anything until I get back next summer, though. Potions, especially, can be dangerous, but I'll help teach you. Your sister can't hog all the glory."
Petunia laughed at that. "I suppose that's something. Potions is a bit like cooking, isn't it? I'm good at that."
She was. It sometimes baffled Severus how the Potter boy… Harry… stayed to skinny under her roof. Then he remembered what she'd turned into last life, and it made more sense.
He took a deep breath to forestall his memorized rant about the insult of comparing the mundanity of cooking with the glory of potions, and said, "There are some practical similarities, yes, but also some radical differences. If you think of it like cooking, you'll form some mental hurdles for yourself later on. Try to conceptualize it as its own thing."
Petunia rolled her eyes. "Sometimes you're the oldest eleven-year-old I've ever met, you know that?"
Severus stuck out his tongue, just because he could.
"Whatever. Make me something cool with what you learn at magic school. I'd better head home to contain the freak out when my parents get definitive proof that Lily's a witch. I'll see you again before you leave, won't I?"
"Of course! It's still a month away. Plus, I won't ditch you for the rest of the jobs we have lined up. You're… you're kind of my best friend. I won't leave without saying goodbye."
Petunia smiled and nodded firmly. "Good. See you later then, Magic Boy!"
"I'm a wizard!" Severus shouted back, loud enough to skirt the limitations of the Statute of Secrecy.
He didn't care.
He was going to Hogwarts. He was about to get access to magic again! He ached to hold a wand; his wand.
Would he even get the same one, this time around? Magical cores remained in flux until the age of ten or eleven, and the reasons why remained hotly debated.
Had Severus' new experiences and different motivations altered his core?
He had watched his skin dance with different colors ever since he'd taken those bandages off his eye, but without knowing what his core had settled on last time, Severus had no way of knowing if he'd changed until he visited Ollivander's.
Hopefully Eileen would give him a little cash and allow him to visit Diagon Ally on his own this time. As soon as she had realized how self-sufficient Severus had become, she had taken that as an excuse to retreat further into herself.
He had barely seen her since arriving in this time, let alone basked in her motherly affections.
And then there was his father's reaction.
Tobias had been displeased with Severus attending a Wizarding school last time, but he had also been witness to enough bouts of accidental magic to be relieved that he wouldn't be living with a faulty ticking bomb under his roof for most of the year.
Severus had changed a lot since last time. He wasn't as angry. He wasn't as bitter, or vindictive, or carrying a massive chip on his shoulder. He wasn't vibrating with a constant helpless rage.
He was calm, focused, and rolled with the punches.
Metaphorical and physical.
At least his nose was still intact. Ha.
He had no idea how his father would react to his Hogwarts letter this time and braced himself to dodge a few blows.
Severus had never considered himself vain, but between his otherworldly eye, the shampoo and soap Petunia had gently gifted him for Christmas that first year, and the fact that Severus had figured out how to re-light the water heater after Tobias left for work, he found himself taking care of how he looked.
It certainly made his life a lot easier to look clean and professional, especially with his eye singling him out already.
The eye had turned out to be a mixed bag.
Some people made fun of him for it, some people thought it looked 'awesome', and some people tried to ignore it, but ended up awkwardly avoiding eye contact with him in the process.
Severus put the gardening tools away and made supper. Tobias was late coming home and Eileen was sequestered in her room, so Severus ate alone and did his own dishes before storing the rest of what he'd made in the fridge and retreating upstairs.
It was safer to be out of sight and mind whenever one of his parents made an inevitable appearance.
He double checked the required items list Professor McGonagall had included with his letter and made his own list of what he'd need to buy.
He'd need to visit Gringotts to transfer his muggle money into galleons, and he might as well set up a vault for himself while he was there, if the goblins would allow it.
He had lived in paranoia that Tobias would find his savings and blow it all on gambling or booze. Thankfully the odd coin or small note he'd left lying around as a decoy had been enough to satisfy his father's compulsive urges.
As miserable as the Slytherin dorms could be at times, Severus was looking forward to not living with an addict for a while.
He… would still be a Slytherin, wouldn't he? Severus had had so much to worry about regarding the timeline, his new eye, and his own survival that he hadn't stopped to think about Hogwarts houses in quite a while.
He had been the Head of Slytherin house, for Merlin's sake. He should be locked in.
As he thought about it, though, he realized that while he was still cunning and was more ambitious than ever, he had also been a spy, which required a blood-curdling amount of courage, and he had become very hard working for his physical age since jumping back in time. He'd always craved knowledge, too, but if that hadn't been enough to land him in Ravenclaw the first time around, he didn't see how that'd change this time.
What if he was a hat stall and the hat left the choice up to him?
If he could choose, where would he want to go?
Not Gryffindor.
As tempting as the opportunity to get back on track with Lily was, Severus would never willingly put himself in the same dorm room as the Marauders.
He could be a Hufflepuff, he supposed. Everyone found them inoffensive. An image of Zachariah Smith flashed through his mind, making him shudder.
No, there were dunderheads and arseholes in every house.
Severus didn't feel like a Hufflepuff. He was loyal and hardworking to serve his ambitions. Once the world was saved and Voldemort was gone for good, Severus fully intended to tell anyone and everyone to piss off while he retired to a secluded potions lab fortress somewhere unplottable.
Ravenclaw had always been his second choice, barring the regret of being separated from Lily, and he supposed that was the safest option for him. He'd be away from the politics and somewhat shielded from the Marauder's wrath.
Maybe he could be a Ravenclaw.
It was pointless to speculate, though. The hat would do what it willed, and Severus may or may not have a say in where he went.
He had had Slytherin first years brag that they had talked the hat into placing them there and firsties who had been sent to him crying on their first night because they hadn't wanted to be a Slytherin and were afraid that they were now evil.
It made Severus angry that society had placed that burden on children when he stopped to think about it.
Not that it had been safe to think about it when he'd been an adult and a spy. A stray thought like that could have gotten him killed. He was supposed to encourage his students to grow mustaches long enough to twirl, so long as they still scraped and bowed to a particular madman while they were at it.
Severus really hoped that it would not be necessary for him to play the part of spy in this life. It was exhausting.
He would need to think it through more, when he came closer to having to make the decision.
It all revolved around the prophesy. Was it truly a self-fulfilling prophesy? Would Voldemort still fulfill it if he never heard it?
It was too much to worry about now, when he was already overwhelmed with the anxiety of whether his savings would be enough to buy him decent books and a warm pair of winter books.
He needed to focus on being eleven, or he'd damage all of his future chances to save or change the world by being too weird to be taken seriously by anyone.
Loathed as he was to admit it, his social standing was going to be important this time around.