The Potion Professor's Musings

He simply could not believe it...the gall of that boy! Deliberately seizing the opportunity of his absence to immediately delve into his most private possessions- nothing could be more personal, more secret, than one's memories- and that is exactly what he went for. To snoop around in someone else's Pensieve—it must be punishable by law! but Professor Snape knew it wasn't. The voice of reason made itself heard among the sea of his seething thoughts; how on Earth could the boy even know what a Pensieve was? Its discovery must have been accidental, there is no chance he would have been exposed to it before, even if he hadn't grown up with Muggles...Snape's outrage shot down his common sense, the boy had to know. Even with his overwhelming, death-defying luck, there is no way even the great Harry Potter could accidentally stumble into the most dangerous and private thing to be found in the Potion professor's office. It simply was not possible.

Severus Snape looked down at the reflection of his face shimmering in the Pensieve and scowled at himself. He had taken the Pensieve back out of the cupboard with the intention of charming it to block further invasions of his privacy, but now his mind wandered. The memory...he snapped back to life and immediately dipped the tip of his wand into the silvery liquid, pulling out a particular strand and re-inserting it into his skull. He was determined that no living soul should ever see that memory again. Unfortunately, that meant housing it permanently in his own mind, and for the time being it would not stop replaying itself, in full brutal detail. The ridicule and torment he had received from James Potter and his cronies had been unceasing, a relentless torrent of insults, hexes, and other foul things. Snape had grown up on a hearty diet of manipulation; he was no stranger to unkind words, but somehow he thought things would be different at Hogwarts. Well, he had thought wrong.

Even now, when he caught glances of young Harry Potter walking down the halls, the spitting image of his father, he could not stop the slight shudder of fear mixed with loathing that surged through him. He never showed it; he was far too controlled a man to let even a flicker of unwanted emotion flash across his face, but beneath that rigid exterior was a frightened school boy, still wary of his tormentors after all of these years. When Harry had arrived at Hogwarts, bearing such an uncanny resemblance to his late father, Snape knew things would be rough. Although he now found himself on the giving—rather than receiving—end as far as torment went, his insults were just a pitiful defense. Though no one, not even Albus Dumbledore, the man who perhaps knew Severus Snape than anyone else alive, knew it, Snape didn't really hate the Potter boy. He feared him, and the wave of memories he seemed to leave in his wake.