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"Huh, you're slow on the uptake, aren't you? Well, I couldn't believe it either when I heard it. Listen; apparently, the next Lady Potter would be a mudblood."
A seventh year Slytherin boy sitting a few steps away chuckled in disbelief as he spoke. Severus's ears perked up. His heart pounded uncontrollably.
Mudblood. The next Lady Potter would be a mudblood.
His mate looked at him in disbelief.
"Was Potter, that frivolous bastard, caught fooling around with a mudblood? Those blood traitors in Gryffindor, that house is so full of mudbloods it's not uncommon for them to seduce and fuck a few before they graduate; so many do that it's not even scandalous. It's not like he's going to marry every mudblood he slept with."
"Hmph. That's exactly what I was thinking, but the Head of the Potter family declared in public. That his daughter-in-law will be a muggle-born."
"That's crazy. I knew the Potter family is nuts in a different way to the Blacks, but, wow."
"Lord Fleamont Potter is such a boy's daddy as everybody and his crup knows, so the marriage's probably James Potter's choice. Actually, it's stupid to believe a fifteen-year-old boy's promise of marriage, but whoever that bloody lucky mudblood is, I bet she's resourceful; and if she could charm the boy for a couple of years, she may be able to marry him as soon as he graduates, appealing to Lord Potter."
"Hmm, or better yet, if she can seduce him and get pregnant, she'll get a free pass. The Potter family has had enough trouble getting an heir, they'll be happy to have a daughter-in-law, halfblood or mudblood, if only she can give birth to a horde of babies in due time."
"Yeah. Mudbloods have one thing going for them : spawning kids. It astounds me how much the Weasleys are so good at it."
"Do you really believe their family genealogy? Of course they used a mudblood surrogate. The way they refused to be included in the Sacred Twenty-Eight in a huff, I'd say that stinks to high heaven."
"Well, yeah, I mean, they say their ancestors include muggleborns and they're not ashamed of it, but when it comes down to it, they don't really have anything to do with muggles, they're just typical purebloods, right?"
"Exactly. You wouldn't be if you had a mudblood as your official spouse. I suppose they're being clever, playing both our side and the pro-mudbloods."
The rest of the conversation turned into a rather serious chat about the fertility of various wizarding families, but Severus didn't listen anymore. He couldn't.
Afterwards, his memory of how the tea party ended was hazy. When his senses returned and his mind was somewhat clearer, he was walking through the narrow alleys of Hogsmeade.
"...Snep! Oi, Snepp!"
Severus turned his head in surprise. At the far end of the alleyway, a burly wizard was gesturing to him with a frown. On second glance, it was a Slytherin graduate from a few years ago. Goyle, was his name?
The man didn't say anything more once he had Severus' attention, just jerked his head in a gesture for him to follow, then turned and started walking away. Severus hesitated for a moment, then started walking after him. He remembered whose entourage Goyle had been when he was a student.
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An hour or so later.
Severus was walking down the road to Hogwarts. Along the way, there were one or two students slowly returning to school. Severus walked in silence, not giving them a single glance. The expression on the boy's face was unreadable.
Ordinarily, the boy's walk might have been a leap of excitement; he had just received an offer from a nobleman he admired, a sort of prospective scout.
Goyle escorted him to a small townhouse in Hogsmeade, where he was presented to Lucius Malfoy. There, Severus received unexpected praise from a prominent pureblood he hadn't dared to even make eye contact with during his time as student, as well as a very cautious, conditional offer of sponsorship and a possible place on his team, so to speak.
The latter offer was very circumlocutionary, vague enough to be denied later if it came to it; but if it was incomprehensible to a Slytherin, he should go to the Hat and beg to be re-Sorted as a Gryffindor or Hufflepuff.
Lucius's meaning was clear : you're from a scrappy background, but I hear you've got some cute little tricks up your sleeve, so why don't you try out for my line?
Of course, he'd have to prove himself before that, and he'd have to do whatever errands Lucius wanted him to do.
Ordinarily, Severus would have smirked in satisfaction at how he had achieved 120% of what he had set out to do at the tea party. He hadn't expected to receive a scouting offer directly from a big shot like Lucius Malfoy in the first place. Just exposing himself to someone like Goyle, Malfoy's henchman, would have been a sound first step in his plan.
The young pureblood's gaze was arrogant, but his tone was gentle, and his words of encouragement for the halfblood kid's talent sounded genuine enough - that is, Lucius was polite enough not to make a blatant half-hearted judgement. Given the disparity in their social status, it was a compliment that should have made the poor halfblood boy squirm with joy in ordinary circumstances.
Unless, that is, Severus had never heard what it was like to receive a sincere compliment from a grown-up, eye-to-eye, from a professor a few weeks ago.
Severus hadn't done much to distinguish himself aside from excelling in Potions in his first year, and spell modification and creation was something he hadn't even attempted in his lower years. Furthermore, Lucius hadn't even laid eyes on the first-year before graduation, let alone spoken to him.
Thus, what Lucius essentially did was to hear about a curious monkey that might be useful to him, to call it over, and stroke its fur a few times.
Severus did not feel disappointed. If a Slytherin whines about how he was disappointed that someone didn't seriously respect him and was only trying to take advantage of him, it was time to fold up his Slytherin sign and pray for re-Sorting to the Hat.
But there was no genuine admiration or excitement at this moment from the boy's heart, as there might have been in another timeline.
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The same day, at Hogwarts
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"...Lils."
Summoned from the library by Severus' beckoning, Lily opened her mouth to warn him as soon as she saw his expression.
"If you're going to ask me if that crap of a gossip is real or not, just shut up and go now. I mean it."
"...Uh, umm..."
He'd been hit on the head.
The sight of Sev's mouth opening and closing, his face flushed and pale at once, was a picture to behold. Lily stamped her foot in annoyance, but didn't follow her first impulse to turn and walk back to the library.
On the first day out to Hogsmeade after the term had started, the fifteen-year-old girl who had deliberately locked herself in the library while all her housemates were out in their full fancy dress with shopping lists in hand, had been seething since the morning and was in desperate need of someone to talk to who wasn't a first or second year.
Eventually they compromised and the boy and girl spread out under their favourite tree by the lake. Lily looked back at him.
"So, what did you do in Hogsmeade? Not that it's any of my business, but I was half expecting you to stay at school today and come to the library. You once told me last year, Sev, that going out to Hogsmeade was for those with nothing better to do with their time, or creepy couples who should really get a room."
"Uh... well..." Severus hesitated before answering, not quite able to tell Lily that today he had attended a pureblood society that he had only heard about in his mother's reminiscences, that it had been very beautiful and he wished he could have gone with her, and that he had heard ear-achingly about the banishment and quarantine of mudbloods during the meeting.
Lily let it go, thankfully. "Ugh, I know. It's not easy to find anything worth buying in that wicked town of Hogsmeade; I heard some of the shops even change their price-tags prior to our Hogsmeade Day."
"I didn't do any shopping; but I heard some strange rumour about you there from the pureblood guys, Lils."
Lily sighed heavily and glared at Sev.
"You already know Potter asked me out just before the summer holidays; you and I chewed at him on the way home. It's not like it's new information, so why are you making such a big deal out of it?"
"...'Cause it is new information."
Lily puffed out her cheek when she saw Severus's somber gaze.
"Ah, yes. That the great Lord Potter has given his approval. What a bloody wizard's cxxx of a XXXX."
Severus's eyes widened at the horrid expletives that would have been heard in the slums of Cokeworth coming out from Lily's lips. Lily didn't seem to notice and leaned back against the tree, adding a few more profanities.
"Disgusting snobs! They all just xxxxx on xxx of a posh! I never thought my dad's words would be so true in the wizarding world; and even the girls in my house are the same, and they call themselves Gryffindors! I'm ashamed to go into my own dorm these days."
The girls' late-night snack and gossip on the boys around them was suspended when Lily was in the vicinity, and the mood in her dorm was noticeably stiff.
Even the girls who had previously spent years complaining about James Potter's pranks, were so blatant in their recognition of Lily's oh-so-lucky prospective match that she couldn't believe it!
Even worse, they'd already known that James Potter had asked her out the previous summer! The implications of this made Lily even more furious.
So, previously it wasn't worth their attention whether Potter proposed to or serenaded her, as surely he was just seducing a pretty muggleborn girl and then would break up with her after a couple of casual dates. But then the whole House suddenly turned to look at Lily in a frenzy of excitement at the mere mention of the Head of the Potter family considering her for his heir's wife!
No wonder James Potter had proposed to her right after the holidays and acted as if she'd be ever so pleased and grateful that he'd got his father's permission for the courtship.
Severus spoke up then, his voice flat.
"...So, how do you feel about it?"
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