A/N: Not my sandbox, just my sand castle. I don't own anything from Harry Potter. Additionally, no one has permission to bind and sell my works, fandom or otherwise. Shame on you for exploiting other people's works!

Hello everyone! Welcome back to another fic :) Enjoy this alternate AU where Severus had followed Lily into Gryffindor and he still got bullied

This one is for Round 2 of The Houses Competition, where I'm in Gryffindor House and writing for Potions. This competition, we have to write a drabble (500-1000 words) as well as a standard (1000-3000 words). This fic is the Standard of the two. Prompts are listed below.

Thank you kindly to Queenie, Dora, and BeaWrites for the beta!

Word Count: 1911

Disclaimers/Warnings: mentions of off-screen death, offscreen child abuse and bullying

Summary: Severus discovers that he has more people in his corner than he originally thought. Gryffindor!Severus

Prompts:

The Houses Competition Y11 R2

"A wise man can learn more from his enemies than a fool from his friends." ~Niki Lauda (Rush)

(Pairing Positive) Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape

"Just because someone stumbles and loses their path, doesn't mean they're lost forever." ~Professor X (X-Men Days of Future Past)

(Word) gravity

"Another Life"

"Mister Snape, stay after class please."

Severus winced as Professor McGonagall's voice echoed through the Transfiguration classroom. The bell had just rung for dinner, and it was only the first week of classes in their O.W.L. year. He couldn't have possibly gotten on her bad side already.

Had she figured out one of his dormmates had stolen his homework and copied it to turn in as their own?

Sullenly, like all fifteen-year-olds, Severus procrastinated cleaning up–packed his bag slower, adjusted his red and gold tie, fiddled with his wristwatch–waiting for the rest of the class to filter out.

"Oh look at that, Snivellus got in trouble already!" Black murmured to Potter and Pettigrew as they brushed past him, all three knocking their shoulders into his. Severus glared at them heatedly from under his bangs, refusing to lift his head.

…the bruises from his father were still a little too fresh from the last time Severus had lifted his head…

"Mister Snape! Up here please!" Professor McGonagall called. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, Severus slunk up to the front of the classroom, ignoring Lily's pitying gaze as she left the room with Cassie and Marlene. They had a falling out their first day back. Severus had apologized and was now giving her space like she had asked. He had already braced himself for when she inevitably left him.

As he learned after his mother died this past summer, everyone would leave him in the end.

"Mister Snape, I just wanted to check in to see how you were doing," his head of house started, shuffling some papers together on her desk into a neater pile. "I'm sorry for your loss. I heard about your mother."

Severus froze up, his eyes widening.

"T-thank you," he stuttered out. His mother's death had been traumatic for him. He had been the one to find her, after all. He was the only one that had cared about her.

They hadn't been able to afford a funeral, so they had a quiet burial with just him and his father there. He didn't think anyone else knew.

He didn't think anyone else would care.

She must have seen something on his face, for Professor McGonagall then gave a small sigh. "Come, Mister Snape. Let us go to my office."

He followed her sullenly, and when she opened the door to the classroom, Sirius Black spilled through the door.

"Mister Black!"

Inwardly, Severus grinned at the sight of her admonishing one of the bullies who made his life a living hell at Hogwarts. She had even taken points off for loitering!

"Now head to dinner, Misters Black, Lupin, Pettigrew. If I catch you sneaking around again, it will be detention!"

Severus looked past Black just now standing in the doorway to see his dormmates, Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin, standing in the corridor. Lupin was ashen, as if the gravity of the situation just hit him. He reached forward to pull Black back, who went with him reluctantly. Severus then locked eyes with Black and nearly recoiled with the animosity in them. Severus scowled in return, but then schooled his expression when Professor McGonagall turned back to him.

"Come along now, Mister Snape. We won't be too long."

"Yes, Professor McGonagall," Severus intoned politely.

After taking a seat in front of Professor McGonagall's desk, Severus was unsure of what to do next. He had been in this position many times before, complaining about his dormmates and their antics, most of them targeting him. She had replied before on her hands being tied, on Professor Dumbledore excusing their actions, no matter how damaging they were. Was this going to be a moment where she could finally tell him the matter would be handled? That he wouldn't have to worry about fighting while at his home away from home?

"I knew your mother, you know," Professor McGonagall suddenly said. Severus lifted his head in surprise, wincing slightly at the too sudden movement. "She was a year younger than me, and in Slytherin, but she always helped out the first years whenever they were lost in the castle, no matter what House they were in. She was always too soft-hearted, for a Slytherin. I always teased her that perhaps she would have been better suited for Hufflepuff, or Ravenclaw. She had a mind like a steel trap! She was also a potions prodigy when she was at school, something that you share with her...well, shared." She paused for a moment before motioning to a metal tin on her desk. "Biscuit, Mister Snape?"

Startled by the topic change, Severus could only stare in surprise at the blue metal container holding sugar biscuits. He shook his head.

"When she left the Wizarding World to marry your father, I didn't see much of her. Admittedly, I was pursuing my own Transfiguration Mastery at that point, but we did connect every once in a while, just to catch up." Professor McGonagall's face was drawn, her gaze distant. "She didn't look well. Married life…didn't suit her."

"Married life to my father didn't suit her," Severus corrected, much to her visible surprise. Professor McGonagall's eyes then narrowed on him, causing Severus to fidget in his seat and wonder if he'd said too much.

"She always mentioned the bruises were from falling down the stairs…she had been a clumsy girl in school…Tell me, Mister Snape. How is your home life? How does your father treat you?"

Instinctively, Severus clammed up, his mind racing on what to tell her. This was his chance to come clean about the abuse at home, the beatings that only got worse once his mother had gone. He could tell her about the constant nights of starvation because his father would go to the pub after work and eat and drink there, so he never kept food in the house. He could explain to her how the Evans family saved his life by giving a starving young boy food and a roof over his head, and safety, and he messed it all up!

"No, everything is fine at home," Severus replied automatically. He noted Professor McGonagall's frown but didn't elaborate, thankful that their uniform covered him from chin to ankle.

"Did you know that I was almost your Godmother?" she then said, and Severus gaped at her. "I had accepted immediately, but then had to wait for her to let me know when the magical ceremony would be. Magical Godparents take their duties very seriously, and I would have been magically sworn to protect you and take care of you should anything have happened to your parents."

"Then why weren't you? Where were you when I was growing up?" Severus asked. He just had to know. Would his life have been different had he had a Godparent? Merlin, even thinking the term had him wanting to capitalize the word. Was a Magical Godparent that big of a deal?

"Several months after she had asked me, Eileen told me they had decided against Godparents. She had looked particularly rundown, but then again, she was eight months pregnant with you. I was surprised that she had the energy to come and meet me. I had often offered to come visit her at your home, but she always declined. Said it was nice to get out of the house," Professor McGonagall explained. "But then, a few months after you were born, she stopped showing up to our get-togethers. At first, I put it down to her being an exhausted mother of a newborn, but then my letters began to be returned, unopened. And I had feared I had lost you both."

Severus attempted to wrangle the emotions swirling inside of him at the gravity of the situation. Had his mother made better choices, he could have been taken away from his home, given respite from his father's drunken rages.

He could have been safe.

"I've tried keeping an eye on you since you came to Hogwarts, but I'm sorry to say that I've failed you. I'm sorry, Severus."

He had no words. The use of his first name made the floodgates break, and everything began to pour out. Gravity drew tears out of him as his emotions prompted him to spill everything about his home life, the circumstances of his mother's death, and his wishes for the future.

"All I had wanted was to find a new family with my housemates, and barring that just my dormmates, but even they make fun of me! They are the ones that put holes in my clothes, and animals in my shoes, and push me down the stairs once they've locked into place! And I just felt so alone because no one likes me here! I don't have friends anymore, and I know it's my fault but–"

"No," Professor McGonagall interrupted. "None of this is your fault. And I'm so sorry for not intervening sooner. I'll talk with the rest of the boys in your dorm. You shouldn't have to fear your housemates." Standing and coming around the desk, Professor McGonagall pulled Severus into a hug. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't help more, and I'm sorry things happened the way they did."

They stood there for a moment or two, before she abruptly pulled away and whirled around to face the door.

"Mister Black, Mister Lupin, get in here!" she bellowed, and Severus paled. Turning, he tried to clean himself up as best he could as he heard the door to Professor McGonagall's office open and then shut again. "How much of this private conversation did you hear?!"

The quiet voice of Lupin filled the office, and Severus did one more mental check of himself that he was composed before turning around.

He jumped at how close Black was standing.

"Is it all true?" he asked, his gaze intense.

"The poverty, the abuse, the never living up to my father's expectations? So what?" Severus sneered in return. Black frowned at his response.

"I'm sorry."

"For what? Being a dunderhead and listening in on a private conversation?" Severus shot back.

"Yes. and for everything else. I didn't…I didn't realize that you and I were so similar."

"Mister Black, what are you talking about?" Professor McGonagall suddenly said from across the room, cutting off Lupin's practiced explanation.

The following conversation ensured that they missed dinner, but Professor McGonagall had called for a tray of sandwiches so they wouldn't go hungry. Severus was surprised at how much Black was sharing of his home life, of never measuring up to his mother's expectations, of her trying to 'beat the Gryffindor out of him', of him being a failure of an older brother to Regulus.

"Fair play of my eavesdropping," Black had explained as their professor sputtered in the realization of how many of her Lions didn't have good home lives. But what could she do? The Wizarding World didn't have child protection services like the Muggle world did.

But in that moment, with this tentative camaraderie with his two biggest enemies, Severus had a gut feeling that things would be okay. His mother was still gone, his father a drunken mess, and those were things that he couldn't change. There was absolutely no reason to support that feeling of optimism, but between Potter ignoring him this past week, Professor McGonagall offering her support, and now his two classmates seemingly on his side, Severus thought that perhaps everything would be alright.