AN: This is a next generation-ish fic. More of an essay for me to write about Snape. The POV is a random student named Aimee and it takes place at a primary school of sorts. And I wrote the professor to be like my 11th grade History teacher. I'm mainly posting it for me. That's all. If you do happen to like it though, let me know!

With a wave of a wand, words magically appeared across the board like they did at the beginning of every class. Of course it was magical; this was a school for wizards and witches. Just like every other day in History of Magic the words "On This Day in History…" had appeared, with "January 9th" brilliantly displayed above it.

"Who can tell me what happened on this day in history, January 9th? Anyone?" Professor Middleton asked. Now, I did know my history pretty well and I loved this class, but I had to learn it first. "Surely someone must know, we've talked about it in passing the past couple weeks." He looked around the room. "I'll give you a hint. It's a birthday." His eyes landed on me. Crap. "Aimee, perhaps you know who was born on January 9?"

I shook my head. "No idea sir."

"How unfortunate, that you would not know the birthday of the man your house was named after."

"But professor, how can we possibly know the births of our house founders if we do not know much about the founders themselves?" someone else said from the back of the classroom. I knew plenty about the Marauders. The marauders were among just a few of the deaths that had occurred during the first and second uprising of Tom Riddle. Riddle had been a wizard, growing up in a muggle orphanage, who came to despise anyone who was not of pureblood wizard status. So, he changed his name to Voldemort and became one of the darkest wizards of all time. The marauders were just a few who thought Riddle's ideas were cruel and who did their best to stop him.

"This is the Marauder's Center for Beginning Wizards. The school was founded in 2000, just 15 years ago by Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ronald Weasley. The school was set up to help muggle born and pureblood students to learn about each other's life styles for the first 2 years of schooling before sending them off to Hogwarts, if they so choose to go there." Yet another thing I knew. Headmaster Granger had told us all many times why the school was founded. If it hadn't been for such a poor upbringing, Riddle may not have ever gotten to be as dangerous as he was. Muggles needed to learn the things that all students from wizarding families already knew and purebloods needed to learn at least some of the things muggles already knew, in order to build tolerance of others. Before the Marauder's Center was opened, muggle-borns and wizards raised in the muggle world were thrown into a complex world without any help and quite obviously, pure bloods were the least accepting, knowing nothing about the incomers. I knew my history, no problem. However, I had no clue how all of this related to January 9th. "Does anyone remember who the Marauders were?"

"James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew, all in Gryffindor House, class of 1978." This kid almost always knew the answers. I knew just about everything once it had been taught in the classroom. This kid usually knew everything even before it was brought up in class. If only he would have known the answer to Middleton's question before he called on me.

"Correct. Ten points to Moony. Due to certain events, all but one of the 4 marauders had houses in this school named after them." Of course he was talking about Peter Pettigrew who had betrayed the Potter family to Tom Riddle. "The House of Prongs was named after James Potter and students put in this house are sorted into it because of their light heartedness and because they are often prone to mischief. The House of Padfoot was named after Sirius Black and students sorted into this house are equally mischievous, but they do not easily forget where their loyalties lie, and they are not afraid to break tradition. The House of Moony was named after Remus Lupin and students sorted into this house are usually quite intelligent, but sometimes don't know when to stand up for what they know is right. All of these houses have both good and bad qualities that are shared by those they are named after. So, what about the other two houses?

"Students in the House of Longiflorum tend to be tenderhearted, intelligent but sometimes quick to anger and their house is named after Lily Evans Potter, wife of James Potter. But perhaps the most baffling house of all of them is the house of Wyvern. Students in this house make plenty of mistakes but they acknowledge them and do their best to fix what they have messed up. More importantly, they know true love and devotion. This house was named after Severus Snape, who was born on this day in the year 1960."

A gasp let out through the classroom. "Why in their right mind would anyone name something after him?" someone asked.

"That's a good question! Why would anyone, especially Potter, Granger and Weasley want to name something after such a man?" I was positive he was just playing along with the previous comment to make a point. Middleton did that quite frequently. "I mean he turned in James and Lily Potter to Voldemort." Snape had heard a prophecy that spoke of Riddle's downfall and then went and told him what the prophecy was about. "Then he got a job as a teacher in order to spy for Voldemort." Snape had taught potions at Hogwarts for about 15 years. "He gave special treatment to purebloods but bullied half-bloods and muggle borns." Potter and his friends had suffered the most of the bullying from him too. "And then, as if that wasn't bad enough, he killed Albus Dumbledore, the man who trusted him when no one else did." Dumbledore had been the headmaster of Hogwarts for years and many knew that he was the only wizard Voldemort had ever feared. "So why would he have a house named after him in a school for muggle born and muggle raised wizards?"

Almost simultaneously, a student in the front said "the road to hell is paved with good intentions?" while another student in the back said "everything is not what it seems."

"Funny you should both say that because you are both on the right track."

And so, the lecture began. "To this day, very little is known about Severus Snape. He was a very mysterious man, very guarded and very stern. He was potions master at Hogwarts for many years, the youngest potions master in history and there is speculation that he studied to be a healer for a while as well. Possibly the most mysterious thing about this man is his involvement with the war. Whose side was he on?

"Snape was one of Voldemort's most trusted death eaters. He was right up in Voldemort's ranks with Bellatrix Lestrange," another student answered. Lestrange was evil. There was no other word for it. She was blood thirsty, powerful, and clever. She had probably caused almost as many deaths as Voldemort himself. So for Snape to be up there with her, was bad.

"He was. Lestrange was the most avid death eater and Snape was the spy. However, on multiple occasions Snape gave Voldemort false information. Records have shown that when Snape was assigned to kill, he would simply move the victims into hiding. The only remaining memories of his lead historians to believe that he had been devoted to Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter, and the Order of the Phoenix ever since the death of James and Lily Potter."

"Then why did he ever get involved with the death eaters in the first place?"

"And why did he kill Dumbledore?"

"At the time he attended Hogwarts, every Slytherin was involved with the death eaters but none of them knew quite how bad it was. When the second war began, many of the death eaters were terrified. The only reason they participated was because they didn't want to lose their lives. Anyways, as a member of Slytherin, of course Snape got involved as well and in the beginning he genuinely was one of the most avid death eaters. However, Lily Evans had been his best friend and that's when his allegiance changed.

"James Potter and Severus Snape did not have a very good history. In school, Potter was a bully and Snape was one of his favorite victims. Perhaps that is why Snape was cruel to Harry Potter. Harry was the spitting image of his father, the only thing different being his mother's eyes. Snape may have seen bullying Harry as a way to get revenge on James. However, it is also possible that Snape's hatred for Harry Potter was staged. Behind closed doors Snape and Albus Dumbledore made many plans on how to protect Harry while also using the prophecy to their maximum benefit to defeat Voldemort. The first few years Snape knew Harry Potter he certainly did not like the boy, but some researchers have hypothesized that it got to a point where Snape was only cruel for the boy's protection when in reality, he cared for him. But once again, these are just theories; no one knows for sure."

"Well if he was pretending to fight alongside Voldemort while serving Dumbledore all along, he obviously had superb acting skills," someone interjected.

"He did. Even if he was serving Voldemort and spying on Dumbledore it still would have taken sheer brilliance to pull off what he did while still surrounding himself with mystery. There is little we know as fact about Severus Snape. We do know that Snape was a half-blood wizard, born into the pure-blood house of Prince on his mother's side. His father was a muggle. Snape and Lily Evans Potter had been very close friends since they were little, and he loved Evans despite the fact that she was muggle born; in fact, she was the only muggle-born witch or muggle in general that he did not feel some sort of loathing towards in his childhood. His dislike of muggles was brought on by the abusive acts of Tobias Snape, his father, and inherited beliefs from the house of Prince, his mother's family. The dislike grew to hatred while he was in Slytherin. The group of Gryffindor pranksters, now known as the Marauders, especially James Potter, disliked Snape from the very beginning and at first, they did not like Evans either.

"As time went on, Potter fell in love with Evans. In time, Snape began getting involved with boys who eventually grew up to become the death eaters in Voldemort's closest circle. Evans did not like Snape's friends because of the fascination with dark magic and in fifth year what broke up the friendship was Snape mistakenly calling Evans a mudblood." That was a horrible name for someone who was muggle born. It was forbidden and anyone who said it nowadays would get detention in school and be put on probation if out in the real word. It had a taboo set on it that would automatically fine you. That mindset had gotten people killed so the ministry tried to do whatever they could to nip sticky situations in the bud. "Slytherins at the time were all anxious to join up with Riddle, who was admittedly much older than most of them, but they did not know exactly how deadly and powerful he was. After reporting the prophecy to Voldemort, who assumed the boy mentioned in the prophecy was the son of the Potters, Snape turned to Dumbledore, asking that Lily and her family be protected when Voldemort planned to kill them. From that moment on, Snape's loyalties were to Dumbledore, but it was kept quiet because of his request.

"As shocking as it may seem, we know that Dumbledore asked Snape to murder him to spare Draco Malfoy's innocence. Snape's patronus was a doe, like the patronus of Lily Evans had been. He used this same doe patronus to deliver messages and equipment to the so-called Golden Trio while they were running, unknown to them who he really was. While historians do know quite a bit more about this man now than we did before, a lot about his motives and who he was as a person are still simply speculation."

"So, did he like Harry or not?"

"Why was Snape dumb enough to ditch his best friend for the death eaters?"

"I don't understand how the marauders fit into all of this."

"Did he really hate the marauders that much that he killed others to get revenge?"

"If Snape had lived in a better situation would he have been less drawn to dark magic?"

"Shoot, if he would have been less drawn to dark magic would he have snagged Evans instead of Potter?"

Now the entire class was yelling out random questions. Some of them could barely be heard, as everyone was calling out questions at the same time.

"I'm glad to see all of you are so interested in this. You all have questions and since we're almost out of time that will be your homework assignment. Research Severus Snape and try to answer some of your questions. Write an essay about your findings due at the end of the week. These may be theories or new found facts. Friday we will discuss them. And remember, quality not quantity."

I left the class thinking. My house, Wyvern, was named after Severus Snape. Harry Potter himself had decided Snape deserved to have a house named after him, even after he had suffered so much humiliation from Snape. So, he must have been important. But was Severus Snape bad or was he good? I guess that, like many other people in history, we would never fully know.