The Early Adversary

The Early Adversary

By Daphne Dunham

The boy was blubbering like an absolute idiot. Tears squeezed out of his narrow, dull eyes and onto his plump, piggy cheeks, and he zealously clung to his equally stout mother. "I'll miss you, mummy!" he bawled, apparently not caring that people all across Platform 9 ¾ were starting to stare at the spectacle he was causing.

"There, there, Peter, it won't be long until holiday - you'll see," the round witch was cooing nauseatingly as she smoothed the boy's hair against his head in a repulsively exaggerated maternal fashion. "And we'll be sure to send some of those mince pies and the lollies you like so much. How's that, popkin?"

The boy nodded furiously, his eyes brightening a bit at the mention of pies and sweets. His mother babbled on and on, coddling her round son in a fashion that was so humiliatingly childish that had Severus Snape not turned away in disgust, he would have blushed from vicariously experiencing the embarrassment of it all.

There would be no such emotional displays from Severus, of course. He was too excited, too full of hope to be starting at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Even if Severus had felt remotely sentimental about leaving, he knew his father would never have tolerated a prolonged or tearful farewell; their enmity was too mutual to allow for a poignant departure, after all. Maybe if he had a mother, things would have been different, but this was a moot point, as Circe Snape had spent the last four years in Azkaban prison - a fact which Severus was most anxious for his schoolmates not to find out.

As Severus stood on the platform, waiting to board the scarlet mass of steel and steam that was the Hogwarts Express, there was one boy, though, who caught Severus' attention in particular. He was tall, wore glasses, and had tousled dark hair. He was standing with his parents, also saying his farewells. The boy's mother was slender, well-dressed, and smiling. She doted on him, while his father jokingly ruffled his son's already messy hair further. They were laughing and hugging and kissing one another on the cheeks and vowing to send frequent owls.

"We'll miss you, James!" called the boy's mother, waving enthusiastically as her son ascended the steps to the train.

Indeed, they were a nice family: charismatic, warm, and affectionate without stooping to the pathetic whining and blubbering of the chubby little boy Severus had seen earlier. This was the family Severus Snape wished he had, the family that he - like all children - deserved to be a part of. He both admired and envied them their happiness and strength, and for a fleeting moment as he watched them, Severus almost wished that he was this enigmatic little boy with the tender mother and fun-loving father.

But he wasn't, and so to atone for this apparent miscarriage of justice, Severus Snape instantly resolved to hate this boy called James - this boy who had everything he wished he had but didn't - instead.