Thanks to Hermione Weasley for encouraging me to finish this memoir. Every time I wanted to gave up, she threatened me to smash my cauldron.

Thanks to my husband for taking care of our children in silence when I was lost in memories. Although he blew up the kitchen three times.

I dedicate this book to my parents, my husband, my friends, my children, and to all those who love me deeply and who have ever loved me.

——Iris · [Only visible to wizards in detail]

Chapter 1 Gryffindor and Slytherin

After deciding to write this memoir, I thought about where to start. The editor of the publishing house hoped that I would start writing directly from 1997, and not go back any further than 1996 at the earliest. However, I still insisted on pushing the starting point of our story back a few more years, starting from when I was a third-year student in Gryffindor. I hope to restore those old experiences of ours to those who open this book as much as possible. Therefore, I will do my best - to be honest, it's not easy - to narrate in the mood and tone of my age at that time.

At that age, I sometimes wondered why wizards didn't have the kind of divorce agencies that Muggles had. If there were such agencies, I would steal some African tree snake skin fragments or something from my father's office, and then threaten Draco Malfoy to join me. The two of us would each bring a vial of Polyjuice Potion and go to handle the divorce procedures for my parents. Perhaps it would be a relief for both of them.

As you can see, I was an ordinary third-year Gryffindor girl at that time, except that I sometimes had some strange ideas in my head. I thought I was very ordinary, but obviously my classmates didn't think so. It's difficult to be a Gryffindor. It's even more difficult to be a Gryffindor whose father is the Head of Slytherin. And it's extremely difficult to be a Gryffindor whose mother was once a prominent figure in Gryffindor. If you think it's a great thing to have a father who is your Potions professor, you are completely wrong. If you think that being his daughter means you can slack off in Potions classes, you are even more outrageously wrong. My father was rarely satisfied with what I brewed in my cauldron. He thought that as his daughter, I should do better, even better than that, and better than everyone else. Maybe he never realized that he always had an almost paranoid demand for people who are close to him. Under such circumstances, it was very hard for the atmosphere in our family to be lively.

But I wasn't afraid of my father. Whether it was because I carelessly melted the cauldron or dozed off and counted the number of stirs wrong, whether I replaced his shampoo with long-lasting hair dye or dumped all the bezoars into the toad mucus and boiled it, as long as I looked at him tearfully and admitted my mistake, he would pull a long face and carry me to the corner to reflect on my own. Thank Merlin for giving me a pair of eyes exactly like my mother Lily Snape's.

I have never doubted that my parents love each other. Since I was a child, I have heard many stories about them fighting side by side against Death Eaters and even Voldemort himself. But at that time, I sincerely believed that my parents hadn't found happiness in their marriage. I thought those who said 'with love, marriage can be happy' must have read too many forbidden love stories between fairies and house-elves in The Quibbler and those 'How to marry a handsome and rich wizard' stories in Witch Weekly.

'You are the one who has read too much of that nonsense in Witch Weekly,' Draco Malfoy clicked his tongue first after listening to my fantasy, and then drawled his opinion in a sarcastic tone, 'You'd better think about your beetle which can never turn into a button.'

Draco Malfoy made friends with me simply because he wanted to get more 'O's in Potions class. As I said before, my identity was awkward. For Slytherins, with a half-blood father and a Muggle-born mother, I could never meet their standard of "pure blood". However, they always had to be somewhat polite to me out of consideration for their House Head. For Gryffindors, conflicts with Slytherins were almost a daily occurrence. Not to mention that the Chosen One, Neville Longbottom, would get into all kinds of troubles related to Slytherins. The troublemakers in Gryffindor would always be caught by my father for various unexpected reasons and have points deducted. And they never thought that the points were deducted because of their school rules violated behavior. They thought it was because my father was inhuman - some of them even thought that my father hated Gryffindor.

How absurd these ideas are! My mother was a Gryffindor. If my father really hated Gryffindor so much, why would he marry her? Since we've come to this point, I might as well talk about my mother, Lily Snape. I love my mother very much. To me, she is the best role model in the world - or rather, a dream. I think no one can surpass her excellence. Even Lucius Malfoy, who unabashedly flaunts pure-blood theory, couldn't find anything to fault with her when they met. They could only greet her in their usual cold and dry tone. Not to mention that she was extremely popular in daily work and life. Unlike my father's withdrawn personality, she was as radiant as the flames of a phoenix.

However, everything has two sides. I think almost all the problems in her marriage with my father stemmed from their vastly different personalities. And after James Potter was transferred to be the Director of the Auror Office, these problems finally gradually developed to a place where I could no longer pretend not to notice.

Actually, I don't quite know what unpleasant things happened between my father, fathers of Harry Potter and Taurus Black at school. After all, to outsiders, they could even be considered former comrades-in-arms. My mother would also gloss over them vaguely when she talked about the old things. It was only after I bribed Draco with a month's worth of Potions homework that he revealed some "old stories" to me. According to him, Harry Potter's father had pursued my mother at Hogwarts, and it was known to everyone in the school. So now, when my father sees Harry Potter's face, which looks as if he had taken Polyjuice Potion with his father's hair in it, the corner of his mouth twitches.

I don't really understand why my father hates Mr. James Potter so much. In my opinion, no matter what, my mother finally chose my father. My existence proves that my father was the ultimate winner. Why should the winner hold a grudge against the loser to the point of near paranoia?

When I started my first year at school, my mother took me to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters alone. That was the first time I met the Potter family. At that time, Mr. Potter hadn't been transferred to be my mother's superior yet. I had no idea about the entanglements between the older generations, and of course I didn't dislike his presence. I also politely greeted him at my mother's introduction. He greeted my mother and me very generously and even said that his son could take care of me on the way. Now that I think about it, it's a good thing that I refused. If I had really been taken care of by Harry Potter all the way, my father might have passed out and ten cauldrons of potions wouldn't have been able to save him.

Putting aside these grudges of the older generations, objectively speaking, Harry Potter can be regarded as a prominent figure in Gryffindor. After all, he is the youngest Seeker in a hundred years. As for Taurus Black, he does whatever he wants with just his good-looking face. As far as I know, Lavender Brown has already sent him three love letters without getting any reply. Ron Weasley, on the other hand, has fewer things that draw people's attention. If I have to say something, he and Hermione Granger, the only girl in the house who is relatively nice to me, don't get along well. The two of them often quarrel, but they still talk to each other afterwards. It's really hard to understand. This troublemaking trio is very popular among other Gryffindors because they always step forward when conflicts break out between Gryffindor and Slytherin although most of the time they make the conflict even worse. But they have indeed helped Neville Longbottom solve a lot of troubles. In the eyes of the students, they haven't done anything too out of line. They just break a few school rules - but my father hates this trio extremely. He says they treat the rules as nothing, they are arrogant and selfish, mediocre and talentless as well.

As I mentioned before, my father wouldn't show any mercy when deducting points from them just because I was in Gryffindor. In my second year, because Draco played a trick on Longbottom, Black cast an unsuccessful Blasting Curse on him in the corridor, just as my father happened to pass by. He deducted fifty points from Gryffindor in one breath. For the whole following semester, I was isolated by the Gryffindors. Can you imagine? I had no idea what was going on. I just spent the whole afternoon in the library looking up information for my homework. When I got back, almost no one in the common room was willing to talk to me - except Miss Granger and Harry Potter. Potter came over and said sorry to me. I stared into his brown eyes in bewilderment, not knowing what he was apologizing for. If it was because of the Blasting Curse, he should have asked Black to apologize to Draco. Of course, Draco should also apologize to Longbottom. If it was because of the points deducted for breaking the school rules, he should have asked Black to apologize to Professor McGonagall.

What's going on in Potter's mind has always been a mystery. If I were him, I would be more sensible and stay away from the daughter of Severus Snape. But he just wouldn't. He always likes to show up in front of me. Sometimes when I'm looking out of the window and daydreaming during the break after class, he would still say something like 'If you keep daydreaming, you'll be late for Transfiguration class' when he passes by and led to me getting startled.

Almost every time I saw Harry Potter, he was standing with his two friends. His hair was disheveled and crooked in a terrible mess, just like his father's. This puzzles me. Doesn't his family sell shampoo? Can't he just fix his hair first? Taurus would directly complain in front of me, 'I just don't understand why you have to provoke her. That little Snape girl rolls her eyes when she sees you.' Although I don't like his lazy appearance either, I think he's right. At this time, Potter would start talking about his 'Gryffindors can't exclude one another' to show off his so-called 'leadership' demeanor.

Where was I? - Sorry. Although I have presided over the compilation of many monographs related to Potions over the years, this is the first time I've written something narrative. The editor of the publishing house told me that I can write wherever my thoughts lead, and the specific text can be revised together after the serialization is over. I hope this somewhat disjointed narration won't cause any trouble for readers.

In the second semester of my second year, Longbottom was isolated by the whole school because he could understand snake language and was regarded as the heir of Slytherin. The rumors about 'Muggle-borns being purged from the school by the heir of Slytherin' made the whole Hogwarts panic-stricken. The deduction of fifty points seemed too insignificant. However, still very few people would take the initiative to talk to me. At that time, as the Chosen One, Longbottom really didn't look like someone who could save everything. But it was precisely he who made the Dark Lord disappear as a baby. As for how he did it, it was always an unsolved mystery. I remember that at that time, the absurd rumor that 'Longbottom himself was an even more evil dark wizard, so he could make the Dark Lord disappear' was spreading like wildfire. Draco Malfoy and the other Slytherins were extremely angry about the rumor that 'Neville Longbottom is the heir of Slytherin'. In his words, 'That complete idiot is the heir of Slytherin? This rumor itself is totally an insult to Slytherin.' They started to torment Longbottom even more severely, and then had more conflicts with Potter and his friends who stood up for Longbottom.

I didn't like it at all when Draco made fun of Longbottom. Longbottom's parents were war heroes, and his grandmother fought until the end to protect her grandson. This was a family worthy of respect from all wizards. Even though Longbottom was indeed mediocre in talent, shy and introverted, he shouldn't have been bullied. Draco didn't pay any attention to my protests. At most, he would drawl slowly, saying that he got it, and then turn around and make new troubles with Crabbe and Goyle, those two fat guys who seemed to have turned all their intelligence into fat.

'So you like that Longbottom?' Once, after hearing my dissatisfaction, he used his wand to lift the stray hairs by my ear with the Levitation Charm and sneered carelessly.

'I don't like him,' I reached out and pushed his wand away, looking into his eyes and saying, 'I just think it's wrong. If you don't torment him, Harry Potter –'

'Harry Potter,' he interrupted me with a hint of malice, 'Do you think I'm afraid of Potter?'

'Oh, of course I know you're not afraid of him.' I realized that I was saying something completely useless. The grudges between them boys were simply beyond comprehension. I could only shrug and walk towards the classroom for the next class, "Forget it. Pretend I didn't say anything."