Severus Snape was a gutter rat rescued from the London slums by Harry Potter's great-grandmother. Years later, he writes a letter to Harry explaining not only his past, but also of Harry's family history and heritage.
Chapter 07
Posted:
06/16/2002
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314
Author's Note:
Author's notes: I would like to say this follows the canon, but sometimes it meshes, so it would be safer for me to say this is an Alternative Universe of Severus Snape's past. Due to the obscurity of Snape's past, I took a great deal of artisical liberty, but I still like to think that Snape is canonly in-character. If not, I blame it entirely on his past. Or something. (To be read thinking that everything you ever learned in OotP does not exist.)
In the full year before both James and I were eleven (my birthday decidedly being the day Pandora found me), Pandora
saw more than a dozen Muggle families and convinced the parents that sending their child to Hogwarts was the right and proper
thing to do. The hardest part was introducing these parents to Diagon Alley.
Now, it was not hard for the children to fall in love with the area. They became as fascinated by it as I had been while
still with my little clan of gutter rats. The parents, on the other hand, did not have their children's magic, so nothing called to them.
They did not feel as if everything was so magnificent and the world stopped for them in a singular moment. To them, Diagon
Alley was strange and eccentric, far too peculiar for their comfort.
Pandora separately took each family and gave them a tour of the main area, explaining what the child would need,
where it was to be had, why it was so important, and where the bank was. The Evans were treated the same as everyone,
though they believed both daughters should learn about the magic even if Petunia would never be a witch. As James and I were
Pandora's partners in the conspiracy, she brought us along for the tour, though James was permitted to bring Sirius. When
Pandora gave James permission to explore, he, Lily, and Sirius disappeared rather quickly.
Pandora and the other adults busied themselves with things that had to be done. Guess who got stuck with Petunia!
I hated that girl. She was haughty, obnoxious, vindictive, and nasty. Had she the ability to think instead of allowing
others to do it for her and had she been able to use magic like her younger sister, she would have made a damn good Slytherin.
However, Petunia Evans was not, in the least, sly or cunning. She was stupid as a drunken horse with a fetish for glue. She had
this odd little way of craning her neck at others, staring at those people who caused her irritancy.
And you, you of all people, do the exact same thing! You cannot imagine how irritating I find this or how
annoying this can be! I cannot pleasantly teach a class when you are using that woman's bad habits! How could you?!
Could you not have found someone else's bad habits to use than Petunia’s? You frown in the same manner, tilt your
head in the same manner, and accuse people in the same manner! This is one of the reasons I find you so absolutely annoying.
It does not matter if you are James' and Lily's son and my nephew; you are too much like that Petunia! You were better off being
raised by Hagrid, coarse as the man is.
I would have preferred to be with Sirius, that being how much I hated being with Petunia. She demanded perfectly
reasonable explanations for every single thing that took place, from how Diagon Alley managed to fit in this one small area, how
the wall had opened up, what were those floating books about, and those brooms! She ranted so much about how brooms logically could not fly until I felt like smacking her upside the head with said brooms. Multiple times. Never mind the fact Pandora had already explained this was a wizard's market and the objects bought and sold were objects of magic. Magic does not tend to be logic. That which is mystical cannot be logical.
Petunia would have been better off with Francis Potter; he would have talked circles around her about magic and what logic did fit into it. Unfortunately, I am not brilliant as he, and so I was forced to put up with Petunia's incessant complaints. For well over an hour Petunia and I stayed with Pandora and the Evans parents, until Pandora was quite insistent about my taking Petunia and showing her around as James and Sirius were doing with Lily.
Petunia began to weave insults into her complaints, mostly about my heritage and myself. Now, being a gutter rat, this was a rather sore subject for me. I had already decided I was a whore's bastard, but to hear it from this girl so callously was wretched. I abandoned her as a result. It was no mean feat to lose her amongst the market's crowd, not with my street skills. I then suddenly found myself with nothing to occupy my time. I wandered the area, looking at all the nice things. I soon found a place that sold all sorts of potions ingredients.
As I roamed the aisles, looking at what was on sale, the very old store owner came up to me. He looked at me down his straight nose, his wire-framed glasses perching on the very tip, and frowned. "Where are your parents?" he demanded. I ignored him. Pandora said often that when I was a customer, I had the right to be in the store so long as I treated those waiting upon me with respect. He trailed after me. "You're here to steal something, aren't you? Oh, I know your kind all right! Always coming about to cause trouble and take what isn't yours!"
This man ranted and complained much in the same manner as Petunia had. I could only take so much, so with a glare of disgust at the man, I tried to leave the Potions shop. Please note the operative word here: tried. The man snatched me back and began to accuse me of stealing things from him, of how I probably had more than a dozen galleons' worth of merchandise in my pockets. When he called me a miserable get of a whore, I bit him in the hand and ran.
There was something about me in those days that seemed to tell others I was not a normal child. Perhaps because I tended to be so sullen and quiet, watching the world and comparing it to the streets I had lived on. You see, Harry, all experiences leave a mark somewhere on one's eyes or face. Even you; there is a shadow that masks the brilliant colour of your eyes, a shadow created from what Voldemort had done to you. My experiences from the slums were not good, and so people saw something stained and wretched.
I heard Petunia's voice calling me a whore's bastard and the storekeeper called me a miserable get of a whore. These things should not have bothered me, but they did. I had lived a wonderful life for the past few years with Pandora. To hear these words were to recall those awful memories of living on the street and to reawaken my general despise for the human population.
I resented Petunia bitterly. She complained and tried to make herself appear a martyr, suffering to be amongst such strange things in the company of her parents who "favoured" Lily over her. What would she know about hard times? What would the storeowner understand about the desperation that would have forced me to steal from him?
As I was not looking where I was running, I ran into a thin boy with pale blonde hair and a haughty expression. This was Lucius Malfoy. He fell to the ground and glared up at me where he was sprawled on the street. He squinted at me, saw how different I was from others, and made his own decision of who I was much like your father had.
"Watch where you are going, you stupid bastard."
That was the third time in a single hour my bloodlines were insulted. My immediate response was a vicious kick to the ribs. It was the only time I have ever physically struck out at my cousin-by-adoption, but the memory is wonderful, especially after all he has done. Perhaps it is marginally my fault for the things he pulled on me being all in the name of revenge for that single kick. Had I controlled my temper I would not have kicked him and that, perhaps, would have saved me a great deal of grief in the years to come.
Or perhaps it would not have. If I had been destined to be what I became then nothing I could have done in the past would prevent the events. Who are we to say what actually is, when all is said and done?
Having kicked Lucius, I ran away once more. After another hour, I chanced upon hearing Petunia screeching about being lost and how the whole world hated her. I followed the screeching and found Petunia telling Lily off as James and Sirius, rolling their eyes and impatiently shifting their feet, waited for her to finish. Lily looked uncomfortable as the centre of attention. Those passing craned their necks to see who was yelling at whom. Feeling sorry for Lily, I strode over to Petunia and said, "There you are! I've been looking all over for you. Next time, don't run off like that. It's hard for me to find you."
Petunia fumed at the idea of it being her fault for getting lost. Lily, seeing her elder sister distracted, ran off with a grinning James and Sirius closely behind. Stuck once more with Petunia, who had decided I was the next best thing to yell at besides her sister, I sought Pandora out.
I found her with the Evans parents at a broom shop, as she explained to them how Lily would not need a broom for her first year and why. I attached myself to Pandora's arm. She saw, no doubt, how much I disliked being with Petunia, and so nothing was said anymore of my showing her around.
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Time passed. You can be sure the only dependable thing that exists is the march of time. For time is that; marching continuously along over those things that get in its way, forever and always, without a single thought of those caught within the march. It drags us along until we cannot keep up with it anymore and thus we die from exhaustion.
One would think that, with the many times she took the families to Diagon Alley with James and myself on tow, Pandora would have found the time to pick up our supplies. Alas! Pandora seemed to have overlooked the fact that her two boys were of the proper age for entrance to Hogwarts, and it was not until Minerva McGonagall showed up to speak to her did Pandora suddenly realize we were both ten years of age.
Minerva and Francis had been in the same House during the same year, and had been good friends during school. The weight of Voldemort’s attacks had not affected Minerva as much as they had affected Pandora, and so she did not look as aged as Pandora. When I first met Minerva, noble and as stubborn as only a Gryffindor could be, James took an instant liking to her, as well as Remus. Sirius, born troublemaker with instincts to rival my street-honed ones, could tell she was a woman who did not put up with nonsense. He avoided her a great deal. I liked to be around her because of this. There are few people I could be open to in any manner, and Minerva, at times, was one of them. Never confide in her when she is sore about you in some way though.
Neither James nor I discovered what it was Minerva wished to speak to Pandora about. Remus explained, years later when he came to me for a potion which would ensure him a human mind during the full moon, how Minerva had come to speak to Pandora about the amount of space needed for a young werewolf. Pandora knew, Remus said, because she sealed off a certain area of the tunnels beneath Dinsmore for his use during the full moon.
When Minerva arrived, she gave Pandora our lesson plans. They came later than what they would have if an owl had delivered them since Minerva had planned to visit. Pandora was a whirlwind of action afterwards, gathering things together to send us off. She was sore to see us go, grumbling not just a few times on how she could teach us everything we needed to know if we were to stay home. She was most reluctant to depart from us, particularly James. It would be the first time since James’ parents were alive that she and he would be separated for so long.
Two days before we were due to load Hogwarts Express, Pandora bundled us up and Flooed us to Diagon Alley. There was an argument between her and James about what sort of animals Pandora would buy. Neither James nor I wanted a rat or a toad, and Pandora thought it impractical to get two owls.
James got an owl, and I selected a cat.
It was not to deliberately sic the cat on the owl, as Pandora must have suspected when she saw the giant striped tomcat I chose. I did so because I remembered the wild cats in the slums and how I liked catching one to pet, disregarding the scratches the cat would administer in its wild fright. If there was anything intentional about choosing a cat, it was because James made the stray comment about Sirius disliking them to the point where they made him slightly paranoid. Motive? Me? Of course. I did everything with a motive in mind, and if getting a cat was a permissible way to irritate Sirius then so I would get a cat.
Pandora did not buy us our books as we already had copies somewhere in the piles of books stored beneath Dinsmore. After that, she took us over to a shop that is long gone now. It was a clothing shop for the male gender. Pandora was a shocking sight as she was the only female in the store, the rest of the folk being male. We were whisked away by people to get our measurements.
As James and I stood side by side with measurement tape wrapped around our torsos and waists and such, in walked Romono Malfoy and his son. Lucius did a doublet-take at seeing who I was while Romono found out he had to wait for Lucius to be serviced. Both broke into loud shouting. Romono shouted at the manservant for not knowing who he was, and Lucius shouted of how I was that horrid bastard who kicked him in the ribs.
James looked at me. "You kicked Cousin Lucius?" he whispered with wide eyes. I was not sure how to reply, so I shrugged. James broke into a large grin and rubbed his hands together. "I've wanted to do that for years!"
The Malfoys used to spend holidays with the Potters due to their common relationship with the Snape family until James and Sirius, tired of catering to the spoiled Lucius, gave him an exploding donut. This was only the first of multiple tricks, such as their brewing up a potion that smelled wonderful but tasted atrocious, tickling sheets and the like. The Christmas before Pandora adopted me was the last holiday the Malfoys spent with the Potters. Romono could only stand to see two pranksters jest with his beloved son for so long.
Lucius hated and despised those who got the best of him in any way. He sought, at all times after his pride was hurt, revenge. Revenge that would mortify his target and, in many cases, do very serious harm.
Romono would not listen to Lucius, so the boy fell silent. But as he was silent, he glared at me and James. In those cold grey eyes, I saw a vicious and cruel child; one who used any means to an end in which to prove himself to be superior. I knew then why James disliked Lucius. This was not just a spoiled brat who could be petty and vindictive at times, but at the age of ten, I saw a shadow akin to the bottomless eyes of the man once called Tom Riddle.
Lucius could and would aspire to be feared by others, for such was his personality. He did not believe in domination; he saw nothing in the use of anyone whose blood was not pure. He desired annihilation. He thirsted for blood and pain.
Family life seems to agree with him though. He mellowed out greatly after Draco was born. But before Draco was born--before Lucius was married, I should say--he was sadistic and cruel, delighting in the torment of others. He rose quickly in power when he joined with Voldemort, swiftly becoming the second-in-command. It was Lucius' fault I became a Death Eater. It was for his revenge against my one kick in the ribs that he brought me to Voldemort and said I was Pandora's beloved gutter rat. Voldemort would have killed me, and I would have let him, were it not for knowledge. Knowledge is always a double-edged sword, one that cuts both ways, and I was going to use my knowledge to cut Voldemort.
More of this will be explained in time. A few moments after my seeing Lucius' eyes, Pandora, clutching a copy of The Daily Prophet in her hands, wandered into the room. She looked at Romono, who had not noticed her, and then at Lucius, who continued to glare at me. She rolled her newspaper up, marched over to Romono, and lightly thumped him on the head with it. Romono whirled around to yell at the person who dared to touch him and saw it was the family matron.
Pandora was considered the head of both the Snape and the Potter families. The sight of her was enough to calm Romono. Upon smacking Romono with her newspaper, Pandora unrolled it and opened it up to the page she was reading. "Lucius must wait because my grandsons are getting measured," she replied as she turned away from him. Romono cast a withering look over at James and me, while Lucius never broke eye contact with us.
I felt a dark foreboding while looking at Lucius, as if it was a warning of what would come later. It truly was, and I abhor the man even more than I hate Sirius.
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I was frightened at the idea of entering Hogwarts. It was partially because Lucius would be there, partially because Pandora would not be there, and partially because I would be stuck with such people like Sirius and James. I had lived for only five years in Dinsmore, a little less than half my lifetime, whereas the other half was spent on the streets. I did not want to leave Dinsmore. It was safe and warm, the food was good, and there was a multitude of knowledge to be had from reading the Snape library. At Hogwarts would be people, and because Pandora had caused quite a stir in the Wizarding world for adopting a little gutter rat, I knew I would be the centre of many a stare and whispered word.
When the sun rose on September 1st, it found me at the foot of Severus' portrait. It was crowded as the twins, Oliver, and Francis had all joined him in seeing me off. Seeing how depressed I felt, they tried their best to cheer me up. It did not work. What happened was the twins' jokes became more racy and both Francis and Severus scolded them for saying things to an “innocent” child such as myself--if only they knew the truth!
In the end the twins wrestled with their father and grandfather, flinging each other all over within the frame, and poor Oliver sat to the side, looking as miserable as I felt.
I did not desire to leave any of these persons. They may have been only portraits and shadows of the people they had been in real life, but they were still my friends. The twins were like Sirius in their desire to joke with me, but they knew when enough as enough. Oliver was the only real father-figure I had in my youth. Severus I admired and loved for his bouncy attitude of the-devil-be-damned-with-everyone-else. Francis treated me like an equal, answering my endless bounty of questions on theories and hypothesizes.