What Connected Us All

Snape

Severus had taken interest in Farren Graham seven years ago while boarding the Hogwarts Express for the first time.

Having said goodbye to his blank-eyed mother, Snape had begun to climb onto the train, but something stopped him: a shimmering gold from the platform. Turning in curiosity, he saw her. A girl with such a large shock of curls that, upon first glance, one wondered whether there could possibly be a person under it at all.

It startled Severus to see such an exuberant amount of color. All his life he'd been privy to mainly three colors: gray, black, and sallow (though he supposes that, in fact, is a skin tone rather than a color). And now, here stood this small girl with shiny hair wearing a loud blue dress.

Beside the Golden One was a plump man dressed impeccably in a business suit. He kept checking his watch impatiently and peering at those on the platform. The evident scowl and awkwardness on his face revealed the man as a Muggle.

The girls eager fidgeting confirmed Severus's suspicions.

"Well, I guess this is goodbye for the year," he heard her say, one foot already on the Express.

It seemed to take the adult a massive effort to remain concentrated or really care at all. "What? Oh, yeah... I'll be seeing you then, Anamarrie."

She flinched. "It's Farren, Papa."

"Right, right," said the man with a laugh, as though the whole thing was just a big joke. "You do so resemble your mother. Except for the hair, of course..."

With that he gave the Golden One a formal peck and was gone.

The train door closed and she exhaled a gusty breath. "Thanks for the good luck," she - Farren - muttered. "For all you care I could be sorted into Huffle-- Is someone there?"

Severus, who had flattened himself against a wall, jumped violently at being addressed. He was caught red handed. It would be difficult even for him to squirm or sneer his way out of the situation. So should he stay or run? Fight or flight?

He scrambled.

"Wait!"

The girl latched onto his shirt before he could get far enough away.

"Let me go--!" Snape thrashed around madly.

"Will you stop fighting?" she ordered with an authoritative tone.

He relaxed grudgingly.

"Good... Now, what's your name?"

Snape was slightly perplexed. He wasn't sure what he'd expected, but a warm exchange of introductions hadn't been one. "Severus Snape."

She stepped back to consider him with scrutiny. "That suits you very well. Were you spying on me?"

"I -- No, it -- My trunk got --"

The girl laughed and it was a loud, ringing sound. "It's okay; you don't have to lie about it. I like it actually." With that smile, she extended a pale hand. "I'm Farren Graham, by the way. But everyone calls me Ren."

Severus shook the hand tentatively. Then, in a surge of bravery, said, "I like Farren better."

Her smile widened. "Well I like you, Severus."

They spent the entirety of the train ride in a compartment together, Farren speaking excitedly all the while. She informed him of what information she'd managed to scrounge up on Hogwarts. Snape thought she'd gotten a rather different impression of the school than he. From what his mother, Eileen Prince, had related, he thought of Hogwarts as nothing more than an institute of education. In fact he even found it rather dangerous, considering a Muggle-born girl had died in his mothers time.

But Farren spoke with such a fierce passion that Severus found himself getting just as excited. Her moods were infectious.

"I looked into the history and it's just so fascinating. Did you know that Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin were best friends at one point? It ended right before Slytherin abandoned the school, though. They aren't even sure why it happened. But I think--" and here she leaned forward, continuing in a conspiratorial whisper "--that it had something to do with a girl they both fell in love with. I mean, that's how it always is.

"No, what I can't figure out is how they could've been friends at all. Total opposites, Gryffindor and Slytherin."

"But that's a good thing sometimes, isn't' it?" Severus interjected, speaking for the first time in hours. "Being so different from each other and all."

Farren grinned. "That's true."

And the rest, as they say, is history.

The first years were taken across the lake and into Hogwarts. Snape can remember McGonagall calling Farren's name to be sorted. Her knees shook as she walked, a fierce determination etched onto her permanently child-like features.

The wait to hear the hat's exclamation of "... GRYFINDOR!" had been unforgettably long. Some upperclassmen even resorted to pounding their silverware impatiently on the house tables, or to rude jeering and catcalls. Finally the fate was sealed and Farren bounded off the stool to the whooping crowed decked in red and gold.

Severus did not get sorted into Gryffindor. He was greeted by the more reserved applause of those from the farthest table.

There had never been an official declaration to remain separated. In fact, Severus suspected that Farren, so overwhelmed by her first year of magic, had forgotten their brief encounter. Certainly by now it was gone from her memory entirely.

Farren is rather well known for her forgetfulness. How many times Snape had heard her apologize to teachers for neglecting this homework or that. And after she'd apologize, Farren would laugh with the Professor (often Slughorn) at how endearingly absent-minded she was. On those occasions she reminded Severus irresistibly of a butterfly; or some other animal just as fleeting and insubstantial.

But then still at different times, when no one but he was looking and Farren sat alone, Severus would watch the radiance leave her face. Her eyes would visibly slip into some unknown horror. They were eyes, he couldn't help noticing, that remained a very complicated blue.

Snape would not be fooled by her. Farren could pretend to be the unfeeling butterfly all she wanted, but in the end, he knew better.

Severus enjoys watching her during class, attempting to interpret her many oddities, or even experimenting with the Legilmency he is novice to. The egotist in him takes pleasure in the idea that he alone can remember her as a vulnerable first year. No one else cares about that Farren. They are all too concerned with the new, more alluring version.

And there is no denying that Farren has become an attractive girl. But it is an odd beauty. One that could be debated whether truly beauty or an eccentric charm. No, that isn't the sole source of Severus's on-going infatuation with her.

Until recently, the "infatuation" had been nothing more than a keen interest. But he holds no more pretenses. She is now being waved right under his nose. Can he honestly be expected to react in any different way? Snape is, unfortunately, a teenage boy. And though he holds more self-control than the other vulgarities, that did not eradicate his needs...

Severus's imagination would wander from time to time while thinking of her. He would picture Farren slinking toward him from the ground with a coy smile on her heart-shaped lips. Or her wide eyes slitting and becoming something feral. Some of his motives have changed since they first met at the tender age of eleven.

Though, apparently, they hadn't changed enough.

When Professor Slughorn announced they would be assigned partners for their final year, Snape had hoped - too much so for his own comfort - that she would be the one. He even contemplated ensuring it with magic. But then Severus told himself sinking so low would be classified as petty. Something Potter or Black would do.

In the end it did not matter. Due to luck they were selected to work together. And after receiving their first assignment, the paper, Snape had gone to the grounds to reunite with Farren.

But Black got to her first. Severus walked by them and heard the boy inviting Farren to a night of drinking and partying.

He had never felt a fury such as that. His hands shook with the need to hurt Black, to feel his bones break underneath his fist--

Snape counted on a reasonable lateness from Farren (the girl would undoubtedly have a hang over) but he'd not expected an hour's tardiness. With each passing minute she did not appear, Severus became steadily more enraged. He imagined the two of them together, fucking. Black doing all the right things to her; and her moaning for him. The vicious fury deepened with the realization of his jealousy.

How dare she do this to him? Make him feel as though her every move directly affected him. Severus had promised himself as a small child to never allow a power such as this over him. And now here he is pining, like some sap, over a girl he had not spoken more than four words to in the past six years.

That is why the meeting went so disastrously. The sight of Farren sickened him. And then she'd tried to avoid work and treated him as just another subject to be manipulated. He lost control.

Severus admits he might have been a bit too harsh. Looking back he is quite embarrassed by the outburst. But in that moment he had known no stronger feeling than the hatred for... well, not her, precisely. More for the maddening idea of having a... crush (God, the word itself gives him enough spite to cast the killing curse).

That evening in the Great Hall, Severus performed Legilimency successfully for the first time. At first all he saw was Farren's insecurities. He felt sheer disappointment. After all this time, after everything, she was just another Gryffindor who wore her heart on her sleeve. She wined of how unlovable she was, and how damaged beyond repair she was, and--

...But then Farren's attention turned, and their eyes locked.

Her thoughts appeared, plain and unmistakable. They surged threw her intricate mind as broken images followed by odd words. Words whispered in a voice of soft desperation. And then there it was: their inexplicable and obscure affinity. The desire that should not have been. Wanted by neither, and felt so strongly by both.

There it was.

Author's Note: Can anyone get the "Golden One" reference? It's from Ayn Rand's Anthem. I thought it fit because A) Farren's hair, and B) Farren and Snape's relationship, like in Anthem, will take them to utterly new levels of intellect and knowledge.