CHAPTER SUMMARY: We get to meet the three main characters of the story

CHAPTER WARNING: AU, Muggle-only, Angst, OOC

CHAPTER DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of J. K. Rowling to whom I am in no way associated with.

Chapter One – “September 1st”

---

~SS~

Twenty years…

That’s how long it’s been since Severus Snape first set foot on these grounds.

At that time, he had been ready, willing, and able to start a new life; one he’d dreamed about and worked hard to create for himself and his family. It was supposed to be a life so different from the one he left behind that, it seemed to belong to somebody else completely.

But he had wanted this new life; strived toward it. He was young then, much too young, and naïve, believing that being here, at the most prestigious school in the country, would be the beginning of his once-upon-a-time-miserable-life finally coming together.

He had thought that he was finally starting live the dream, have it all, leave behind the demons of his childhood and youth; he was going to be happy. It had been a nice dream to have; a nice and fulfilling life to wake up to every morning, a reason to smile, laugh… for a while.

Later, when his world imploded, everything that he took for granted went away and the life that he’d worked so hard to have, ended. It was hell to discover just how easily dreams could turn to nightmares, happiness to misery and lives to ashes.

He knew better than to dream now.

Dreaming was for children, fools, and idiots who lived in fantasy worlds with magic and dragons and happily-ever-afters. Dreams were useless and could only bring heartache, disappointment and harsh realities, cheating spouses and crumbled families. Dreaming is pain and sorrow and madness, and he wasn’t a child anymore, nor a fool, nor an idiot, and the only world he lived in was one where magic was nothing but smoke and mirrors, the only dragon worth slaying was loneliness and happily-ever-afters never ended happily.

Severus Snape had walked this same path twenty years ago and had been happy. He felt like he was the luckiest son of a bitch in Britain. He had it all: the perfect job, the perfect wife, and the more than perfect one year old son.

Today, Severus Snape, stood in front of the school’s front steps, willing himself to close those last few feet and step into yet another year of academics instead of turning around, and returning to Spinner’s End and pretending September was still some months, weeks or at least days away. He was an empty shell: emptied of dreams, life, and family, resigned to the half-existence he now had, hallow, gaunt, and colder than ice itself.

He was too old, too worn, and too miserable, but above all else, especially on this particular September 1st, he was scared shiteless, because no matter how unfeeling he seemed, how hard he was, or how empty he might have become over the last twenty years, Professor Severus Snape, had one weakness and that was the more than perfect one year old son from twenty years ago, turned into a less than perfect twenty-one year old young man. And today, that child – that boy, that man, his son – was coming here, to Hogwarts, for his first year of higher education.

My son, Severus thought as he pushed opened the doors and walked into the school for the twentieth time on a September 1st.

---

~HG~

September the 1st was the one day Hermione Granger had been longingly awaiting for months.

“Years” her parents would say. Your whole life, her inner self would add in an excited tone, and now, after months, years, or maybe even an entire lifetime of waiting that day, that wonderful, marvellous, long-awaited day, was finally here and she, Hermione Jean Granger, the biggest bookworm the south of Britain had ever seen, the permanent pain in the arse of every librarian, teacher, or bookshop owner and the one and only pride and joy of Tessa and Sebastian Granger was here, at Hogwarts, the most respectable medical school in the country – her dream school.

Yes, it was one of those boarding schools all her former school mates and almost everybody she knew under the age of forty said sucked and yes, the school was so far away from Salisbury that she’d probably never be able to visit her parents except during the holls and in the summer, but she was okay with that. She’d been okay with many a thing lately and all to be able to come here this year. So being cooped up in a boarding school with hundreds of students she knew nothing about except that they were the best in the country or missing her family nine months a year for the next seven years when compared to the chance – the one in a billion chance – to study under the best professors at the best school in Britain was nothing.

Nothing at all, her thoughts added as she once again looked up at the magnificent building before her.

It truly was impressive – just to be here, to stay where so many great minds of the last millennium had stayed, and to learn from the greatest professors the world had produced. It made her feel great and small at the same time and for Hermione Granger, there wasn’t a greater feeling in the world. Here she would learn – truly learn – and she would have opportunities and chances and resources and…

Yeah… everything else is nothing compared to this!

She could – would – get along, or as along as a bookworm can get with the other students while spending the next years of her life within these walls and she could – would – learn to live without her parents by her side; but she was confident that between her classes, her studies and her projects, she would keep busy, and probably make a friend or two. Surely there are others as excited about learning as Hermione was. Hermione promised herself that she could not – WILL NOT – under any circumstances regret, for even a fraction of a second, coming here.

And she truly didn’t, she realised as her big, brown eyes contemplated the sight before her. Hundreds of faces both young and old, excited or not so much – swam in front of her eyes. There were redheads and blonds, brunettes and persons with hair dyed in every colour of the rainbow. There was calmness and madness and everything in between and she just loved it all.

She smiled with an excitement she hadn’t felt since her first ever day of school and knew – just knew, with a certainty she could barely understand but wouldn’t doubt – that here, in this place as far away from home as she could get without actually going abroad, was where she needed to be. This was where she would be the best she could be, where she would achieve her dream, live her life, be happy.

This was home – she was home…

…and she couldn’t wait to discover it all.

---

~SS~

Lily,

I realise I’m a little early this year – months early and years late – but I needed it early this time. I need my yearly fix of pouring out my soul, of laying it down at your feet and I need it more than I need my next breath.

Our son is starting Hogwarts today…

I’m still amazed he’s not a chubby toddler running around the house anymore. He’s grown, my age when we had him and that scares the crap out of me. When did he get this old? He shouldn’t have grown so fast – time shouldn’t have hurried like this – he shouldn’t be a man now. Wasn’t it yesterday that he still had training wheels on his bike? It sure feels like yesterday…

Our son is starting Hogwarts today and I don’t know what to do. I’m scared. I’m scared he’ll hate me for the years I let go on without a proper fight, for you and for everything else I screwed up.

Did I screw him up, too? I didn’t, right? He’s okay and well and happy…

On Hogwarts grounds, inside the Snape residence, in the old nursery turned study a long time ago, Severus Snape took another swig at his bourbon glass emptying it. His midnight black eyes went over what he’d written. He scratched out one or two sentences then took a deep breath and continued.

Lily… Can you tell me what to do? How to act? How to be there with him, for him? I don’t remember how to be a father anymore… I want to – God, I want to – but I can’t remember how.

Does he even want a father? Does he want me? Is he still my son, or have I lost that too? Tell me, Lily, do I still have my little boy? Am I still dad and daddy, or even Severus when he’s too mad at the world and me?

Am I even in his thoughts anymore? I want to be… He’s in mine – he’s always in mine.

He’s always there in my dreams…

… and today, he’ll be here in my reality and that, I have no idea how to handle. Help me, Lily! Tell me what to do! You won’t. Even if you read my pleadings, you still wouldn’t. I know. I understand – or maybe I just think I do. It doesn’t matter.

Our son is starting Hogwarts today… Wish him luck… Wish me luck…

We’ll need it.

---

~HG~

If the train ride up north had been calming and quiet, offering Hermione both the time and the perfect ambience for some pleasure reading, as well as note-taking while skimming this semester’s school books, the same couldn’t be said for the bus ride from the train station up to the castle – because, yes, Hogwarts’ main building was actually a castle! That was why during the craziest twenty five minutes of her life, she inadvertently heard everything from who was the craziest professor, to who was the sternest or the most indulgent one, to something that seemed to be the newest and juiciest gossip of the school – some teacher’s long lost son or something coming to Hogwarts for his first year – and details on who was dating whom, who was cheating on whom and who was to be this year’s blushing virgin. She tried – she really did – but still no matter how hard or how many times she gave it a go, blocking all conversations and continuing her reading was on that particular bus ride nothing but a lost cause. She gave up after reading the first paragraph for the fifth time without actually retaining anything. It was all just words, dates, and names that had no chance of competing with the never-ending chatter of her schoolmates.

But now, as she stood, amongst nothing but first years just like her, gathered in a side room to the Great Hall – the Waiting Room according to ‘Hogwarts: A History’ – she couldn’t help but long to be back on the bus. Yes, she’d been stranded on that bus with second and third years and yes, even ‘Hogwarts: A History’ said third years were the worst, especially from a first years’ point of view, but the noise level then had been nothing – NOTHING – compared to the absolute chaos that surrounded her now.

Here everybody was talking, all at the same time, as if to simply shut up and listen was an impossible feat. There was talk about that guy again – the one whose father was a teacher here at Hogwarts – and some talk about how Chemistry class should be a blast for at least a while with the awkward father/son reunion, but with all of them talking one over the other it was kind of hard to be sure that what she heard and what was said actually matched. Not that she cared all that much – gossip and especially this type of gossip wasn’t her thing – but the noise and the insanity of it all were driving her mad.

I can’t even hear myself think, she thought with a frown.

Her head was already killing her – the noise, the heat of too many bodies cramped into the small room, and the furious whispers doing their best in producing the world’s worst headache.

Fortunately, the chaos in the Waiting Room was over before she knew it. There was a loud creaking noise as the door swung open and a tall, black-haired elderly woman, dressed in a light-grey trouser suit walked in, turning, as if through magic, the madness from just an instant before into complete and blissful silence. It probably was her appearance, which screamed its demand for respect or the towering figure she made while surveying the small room with stern eyes and a pair of thin lips set in a hard, straight line. But Hermione’s first thoughts regarding the yet unknown woman – probably one of the professors, she guessed – was first of all, that this was not someone anybody would want to mess with in any way and secondly, that she wanted to be just like her someday.

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” said the stern looking woman suddenly and Hermione – as well as others from the sound of things – couldn’t stop the intake of breath she involuntary took at hearing such a warm and welcoming tone of voice coming from behind those stern and almost angry looking features. “I am Minerva McGonagall, Biomedicine and Genetics Professor, Head of Gryffindor House, and Deputy Headmistress.

“As you probably know by now, every new academic year at Hogwarts is opened by a start-of-term banquet, which will begin shortly. But, before you take your seats in the Great Hall amongst your older fellow students for a night of merriment and high quality cuisine, you will need to be sorted into your houses. The Sorting, about which I am sure you already know all there is to know, is a very important ceremony here at Hogwarts, one that distinguishes us from other universities, and one we take much pride in.

“The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin, named after the school’s founders. Each house has its own impressive and noble background, and each and every one of the four has produced outstanding alumni throughout our school’s history. While you are at Hogwarts, your academic achievements will earn your house points, while any rule breaking will lose your house points. As you already know, Hogwarts demands of its students the highest levels of academics and discipline, so it should come as no surprise to learn that we advocate only academic progress and we tolerate nothing when it comes to indiscipline. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great, if symbolic, honour, which dates back all the way to the very beginning of Hogwarts.

“I hope each of you will be a credit into whichever house you are sorted. Now, if you would form a line,” Professor McGonagall told the first years, “and follow me.”

---

~SS~

When the darkness of the first Scottish autumn evening of the year finally came, it was to find Severus Snape, along with most of his colleagues – Minerva was out to get the first years – in the Great Hall, surrounded by chatter he had never paid attention to before and had never participated in, awaiting the first years to come in and be sorted. This time though, he couldn’t not pay attention, not when almost everyone, from his colleagues at the high table to the last student at the farthest table on the other side of the room, was talking about him.

“-I tell you I heard he used to beat him-”

“-No, no… He cheated on her-”

“-I’d leave the bastard-”

“-…think he’s anything like him?”

“-…better looking at least-”

“What did she see in him in the first place?”

“…should just stay away from him-”

“…hope the poor boy is nothing like him-”

He wanted to rage and yell that he should be left alone, that the boy – Man, his inner voice offered, he’s a man now… – should be left alone and that this, all of this business about his son’s first year here at Hogwarts, was private and shouldn’t be gossiped about, but he knew better. It was of no use. He could rage at them. He could shame them all with a few words for the indecency they were showing both him and his son. He could even take so many points that all houses, even his own, would be in the negatives until the end of time and still it would be of no use. They would stop talking for a while – he was certain he could secure a full free-gossip weekend with the right words sneered in the right company, they would even feel ashamed of their gossiping for an hour or two – some of them even longer; maybe the whole weekend if he was really nasty, but by the time classes started on Monday, they would simply start anew and he as well as the boy – the man – would once again be under their scrutiny.

So, in the end, he did nothing.

He listened carefully to every whispered bit of slander and said nothing. He raged on the inside, grinding his crooked teeth until he was left to wonder if he would even have teeth to grind after tonight and making fists with such force his knuckles where not only white but sore as hell. He let nothing show to the outside world. He stood rigid and tall; his imposing professor persona coming out for the first time since the end of the last school year, and prayed, as he had never prayed before, that the boy – the man -, that his son was faring better than he was.

I’ll know soon enough, was his last thought just before the large oak doors of the Great Hall opened and the group of excited – and at the same time terrified – first years came into the room.

Severus had to scan just a small portion of the group; they were walking in groups of two or three, lead into the Great Hall by Minerva before he found the angry eyes of his son staring him down. For a second he thought about offering the boy – the man, my son– a smile; nothing much, just a small, reassuring one, just like he used to do years before when the boy – the man – was still just a happy little boy, but he dismissed the idea even before the smile started forming on his lips. He offered the boy – my son – a nod instead and then, without another direct look at those eyes so much like his own and yet so different, which right now hurt like hell to look at, turned away pretending to scan the rest of the first years.

He didn’t see a thing beyond the blur of colour and shapes.

If asked, he would blame the nod instead of a smile on the professor persona he created for himself all those years ago, a persona that had to be maintained always and no matter the cost, a persona that had to not only demand respect but forcefully take it from each and every student, but the truth was that he was afraid. He was scared shiteless to greet his own son with a smile, because he knew; from the boy’s – my son’s – hurtful stare just then as well as all of their interactions until now; that nothing of the sort would ever be welcomed.

Not from you anyway, his inner voice added as he caught, with the corner of his eye, the boy – my son – smiling towards the other side of the high table, where Severus knew the boy’s mentor and Hogwarts Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, was seated.

At that moment Severus hated Albus with all his heart.

---

~HG~

It was only a second after Professor McGonagall led them into the Great Hall – or at least it seemed like only a second to Hermione – that Headmaster Dumbledore rose, walked around the high table and stood before the group of excited first years. Taking a deep breath and offering the room at large a bright smile, the Headmaster started speaking, explaining – mostly unnecessarily, Hermione thought – some elements of Hogwarts history and the Sorting process.

“Our founding fathers were four of the most accomplished medical practitioners the world had ever seen. They were each the best of the best in their specialisations and as such, decided, almost a thousand years ago, that such knowledge needed to be spread to all willing and eager to learn.

“They started by taking on apprentices, young men and women not unlike yourselves, who wanted to learn all there was to learn about medicine, yet soon realised that the demand for apprenticeships was far greater than they expected. As such, Hogwarts School of Healing and Alchemy, in current times known as Hogwarts School of Medicine and Pharmacy was built. The founding fathers thus became the first Hogwarts Heads of Houses while their apprentices become the first teachers of what we are now proud to call our school.

“The Sorting ceremony which you are about to undergo is older than the school itself, dating back to almost a decade prior to its building when Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin took on their first apprentices.

“Just like those apprentices one thousand years ago, in the order you have entered the hall, you will step forward, walk to the centre of the dais and facing the faculty, you will state your name, schooling background, and reason for applying with our school. You will then wait in perfect silence for the faculty to make their decision. Once you have been sorted, you will go and sit at your house table amongst your new housemates and enjoy the rest of the proceedings.”

With a pause, in which the first years shifted noisily until the groups of two or three turned into a single line, and with a smile the Headmaster raised his arms high into the air, announcing for all to hear: “Hogwarts Sorting Ceremony has now begun!”

From there on, everything was nothing but a blur to Hermione. Yes, she saw and heard as first year after first year walked out of the line, went up to the head table and said all that was expected of them, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember one word – not even one name – from all that was said. The only things she could concentrate on – the only things she was even remotely aware of – were her sweaty palms, the blood rushing violently in her ears, and the horrible images her mind continued to torment her with. In her mind – that twisted place that stored so much knowledge and just as much insecurity – she could already see herself walking out of the line, standing in front of the teachers, opening her mouth and saying absolutely nothing – or something so utterly stupid that the professors decided to send her back home.

It was a while until – practically snatched from her nightmarish imagination – she realised that there was no one else before her and that the rude – yet totally appropriate – awakening came from the red-headed freckled-faced girl behind her. It was her turn. She was next in line to be sorted and she was terrified.

Hermione’s anxiety did nothing but grow as she stepped out of the line, offering the red-head a ‘thank-you’ nod. She was barely aware of herself as she walked up to the head table, and facing the sea of faces who would decide her fate, took her first breath since realising it was her turn in the Sorting ceremony. “Granger,” she said, her voice wavering more than she was comfortable with yet less than she expected it. “Hermione Jean; graduate of Saint Joseph’s School of Science, Chemistry class. My reason for applying was first and foremost that Hogwarts School of Alchemy and Medicine has always been a dream of mine, that and becoming a physician. It also has the most challenging honours programs that I know of and…”

She talked and talked, until the wavering was nowhere to be seen or heard anymore and the skittish Hermione disappeared, leaving in her stead the know-it-all, bossy Hermione that all of her former professors loved while all of her former classmates hated. She was back, ready to take on the world and each and every professor here at Hogwarts and it showed.

Before long though, a voice – the most velvety voice she had ever heard, one that made shivers run up and down her spine – interrupted. “That’s enough, Miss Granger,” said the black-haired professor at the end of the long table, his eyes burning a hole where they touched.

She felt silent almost before the dark-haired man – my professor – finished speaking. It wouldn’t do to annoy anybody, especially a professor, before she was even sorted. So she waited. In the heaviest silence Hermione had ever heard she waited for the decision to be made and before long, before she was anywhere near ready to hear it, the verdict of her sorting was discussed, decided and made public.

Professor McGonagall offered a beaming smile – the complete opposite of the stern looking woman that the first years, Hermione included, meet in the Waiting Room what seemed like ages ago – and announced to Hermione and the hall at large: “You’re one of mine Miss Granger – you’re a GRYFFINDOR!”

---

~SS~

If looking into his son’s eyes before the sorting had been difficult, doing the same now, as the boy – Man, Severus, he’s not your little boy anymore! – walked out of the line of first years and towards the head table, was nothing but the worst kind of hell. Those eyes – those eyes he used to stare into for hours when the man before him was only a child – held nothing but resentment.

His son hated him and nothing – NOTHING – could hurt Severus more than that look alone ever could.

Lowering his head and avoiding the malignity his son had for him in his beautiful eyes, Severus Snape, the feared Chemistry and Pharmacy Professor, crumbled onto himself like a pathetic, fearful child, showing – for the first time in over fifteen years – in front of students and faculty alike just how low he had actually sunk. Because no matter what the school gazette had published all those years ago and no matter what people had said ever since, he hadn’t reached bottom until tonight, when for the first time in over a year, his son had looked at him, really looked at him, and instead of the adoration he used to see when the boy was only a child, or the contempt he saw all through the boy’s adolescence, he saw the stare of a man to whom he wasn’t a father anymore.

The boy turned man cleared his throat, took a second – probably to smile at those at the head table he could still offer a smile to; Severus wasn’t brave enough anymore to lift his head and see – and without useless delay started speaking.

“Potter,” his son said, and Severus could do nothing to stop the shiver that went down his back and through his limbs or the consequent shudder at the sound of a voice so different from that he had last heard over a year before he was sure he would have never recognised it. “Harry; graduated from University of Salford – Peel Park, Undergrad General Medicine and Pharmacy…”

He was sure the boy – the man who used to be my son – said more, probably just as much, if not more than any other student had, but he couldn’t tell. He hadn’t actually listened to a word the boy said. He knew and was proud of it all already, but more than that, more than anything really, he couldn’t listen to that voice saying that name, knowing that as an adult – as a mature, rational adult – his son had forsaken his name for that of his stepfather.

No, Harry wasn’t his son anymore – he hadn’t been in years, not completely – but now it was all official. Harry Snape was gone and the man before the head table – the man waiting to be sorted into one of the four houses – was somebody else.

He was Harry Potter and as Minerva’s voice drifted from somewhere beyond his thoughts Severus also knew the boy – the man – was also a bloody Gryffindor.

No comments yet.