[Note: This is the original version of A Difference in the Family, using 9 January 1960 as Severus Snape’s birthday. It may be revised to reflect a 9 January 1959 date.]
THURSDAY, October 19, 1972 (3 days before the full moon)
It was Thursday afternoon, and double potions with Professor Slughorn. The small, skinny, dark-haired boy actually liked the class, as long as he could bury himself in the darkest corner of the dungeon classroom and ignore his teacher, his fellow students, and the passage of time.
The second-year potions book lay open to a wound-healing potion, but the boy was really working on a brew that would induce a ferret to lay an egg. Ferret eggs were particularly valuable for revitalizing people with nervous conditions, but acquiring the eggs was next to impossible as the potion was so complex and fragile. The boy was not worried. The potion for his classwork had taken five minutes to make, and he had the rest of the time to work on anything as long as Professor Slughorn didn’t notice.
The key was to react the instant the tendrils of color began to form. Clockwise stirring, four... five... six... seven... and there it was. Tiny wisps of blue taking shape in the creamy mint-colored liquid. Quickly he stirred once anticlockwise, and the stuff in the cauldron turned turquoise. Clockwise again, five... six... and the forming tendrils were lavender. Diminishing cycles - the boy was intrigued. By the time there were no more clockwise stirs left, the color had cycled back to green.
A small, secret smile touched the corners of the boy’s mouth.
“How did you get it to do that?”
The boy jumped. The redheaded Gryffindor was standing practically at his shoulder, and he bumped into her as he turned. She was looking down at the surface of his cauldron, but then glanced up suddenly to surprise him with emerald green eyes. He looked away because she was trying to make eye contact. Eye contact is dangerous. People who look into your eyes can steal your thoughts.
“Well?” she whispered again. “How do you do it?”
He was confused. For the first time in more than a year at Hogwarts, another student was speaking to him as if he were a perfectly normal classmate. She wants to make me stutter so she can laugh at me.
“Well?”
“You... have to stir it... the right way.” There, it was out. He’d answered her.
“How do you know? I’ve been trying to figure it out for so long. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern.”
“You... have to watch the... swirls. They change color.”
“Show me.”
He looked over at Professor Slughorn. How much time do we have left? The professor was, as usual, ignoring his corner of the room. It helped if your parents were nobodies.
She had the same thought. “There’s almost fifty minutes left. You did this batch in half an hour. I’ve been watching you. Do it again. Show me how.”
They pulled an old, battered cauldron off the supply shelf and started again, the careful measuring and the delicate drop-by-drop addition of each ingredient. They mouthed questions and answers so that no one else could hear. After the second anticlockwise turn, she knew exactly what to look for, and her finished potion matched the mint-green of his.
Each of them took a small stoppered flask of the liquid before they said the spell that cleaned the cauldrons and removed all evidence of their clandestine activity. They were done several minutes before the class ended.
They left the dungeon room separately, for Gryffindors and Slytherins did not work together. But as she was gathering her books, her back to the rest of the class, she whispered, “I’m Lily.”
He hesitated. It was the most important moment of his life, though it would take him nearly ten years to realize it. Then he stepped timidly into the brave new world of friendship. “I’m Severus,” he said, and met her eyes.
The Slytherin dormitories were not far from the Potions classroom. A group of Slytherins headed there to relax for a couple of hours before supper, and Severus fell in behind them as they went deeper below ground to the bare damp wall that concealed the entrance to their common room under the lake. Skirting the green-lit common room and its gathering of students, Severus slipped through an opening and down the short passage that led to his dormitory.
Two of his roommates, Wilkes and Rosier, were already there, but they stopped talking to watch Severus when he walked in. “Aren’t you here a little early, Miss Prissy?” sneered Wilkes. “Thought we told you never until after supper.”
Severus ignored them and crossed to his bed in the far corner. His potions book went into his footlocker, and he took out his black cloak with the Slytherin badge of a coiled serpent. He rather liked the Hogwarts robes, the straight, black, belted medieval gown with its green and silver embroidery on collar and cuffs, the black academic robe bordered in front and on its wide sleeves with the same Slytherin colors, the green and silver biretta, and the black cloak. They made him looked less scrawny.
He didn’t worry about the safety of his belongings. The others had tried to rifle through them the year before, as evidenced by their raw, blistered hands, but none of them had been able to break through the curse he kept on his possessions. They’d tried to tease him more the first year, too. Then a family of spiders had taken up residence right over Rosier’s bed, dropping from time to time into his mouth as he slept, while Wilkes had come down with the worst case of head lice Hogwarts had seen in thirty years. After that things were more peaceful.
Swirling the cloak around his shoulders, Severus closed the footlocker with a snap of his fingers and left the dormitory and common room, unconcerned about the others or what they were doing. Wilkes and Rosier followed his small departing figure with wary eyes, then resumed their conversation.
The first stop for Severus was down the hill, into the copse behind the North Tower. The spring of a tiny stream hid there, and he went to it from time to time to wash up. It wasn’t satisfactory, but he didn’t care as his own appearance had been, up until now, of no daily concern to him. The place he avoided above all was the boys’ communal lavatory with its frightening horseplay. A few of the older boys had once tried to humiliate him by forcing him to strip there, but it’s hard to focus on tormenting a smaller boy when your eyelids and lips are swelling from multiple stinging hexes, and they desisted from their sport. All in all, he considered it a success since none of the other boys had ever glimpsed his scars. Being called ‘Miss Prissy’ by Wilkes was insignificant by comparison.
A few years in Hogwarts will teach you to defend yourself. Never let them see you’re afraid. Never let them see you’re weak. Don’t be fooled into fighting them on their ground. Make them fight on yours. His mother’s words. Words to live by, and he’d lived by them. Oderint dum metuant,* she’d taught him, and he found part of him enjoyed making them fear.
Once into the copse he made sure there was no one to spy on him, then slipped out of cloak and robe and loosened the cuffs and belt of the gown. A quick, modest wash was enough, and he was ready to return to the castle. It was still an hour before supper.
*Let them hate us, as long as they fear us.
October was well advanced, and the Great Hall of the castle was resplendent with harvest decorations. Even before supper was served, the Hall was crowded with hungry students. Severus slipped over to the very end of the Slytherin table nearest the doors, hoping that no one would notice his presence. Normally he’d grab a few bites to eat and sneak outside to consume them. This time he wanted to look at who was in the Hall. Maybe she... maybe Lily was there.
And she was, near the end of the Gryffindor table with a few friends. It was amazing how comfortable she seemed with them, talking and giggling. He watched them without watching, eyes averted and head down. Once, once only, she looked back at the Slytherin table, and for a fleeting half second their eyes met. Did she wink? Or not? Did she even see me? His mind was crowded with such a jumble of thoughts and anxieties that, snatching a few tidbits of food from the now groaning tables, he rose and left the Hall.
“Why did you leave?”
For the second time that day he jumped at her sudden appearance. She’d followed him down to the lake where the moon, more than two days from the full, was beginning her climb into the crisp autumn sky. “I don’t eat in the Hall,” he answered. For some reason his stutter was gone. Probably because he felt better out here in the cold and the dark.
Lily looked down at the scraps of meat and vegetable he’d stuck inside a small bread roll. “No wonder you’re so small. You don’t eat anything.” She sat down on a smooth boulder and untied the ends of a large dinner napkin she carried. It fell open, full of meat, bread, and sweets. “I already finished most of my supper, but I thought we could share some dessert.”
She expects me to sit down. Where? On the rock next to her? He settled on the grass beside her. The food was delicious, and they ate in silence, Lily nibbling slowly and pressing most of it on Severus. He hadn’t realized how tasty the tarts and sweetmeats would be.
“Do you come out here a lot?”
“It’s quiet. Nobody bothers you. I like to look at the stars and... the moon.”
“The moon is kind of special. You don’t do rituals or anything spooky like that, do you?”
“No. I just wonder what they do up there.”
Severus knew Lily was looking at him as if he were strange. He wished he’d phrased his words better. Now she’ll think I’m crazy. But she didn’t.
“They just jump around like children, take pictures, and collect rocks,” she said. “I watched it when I was nine. Didn’t you?”
“We don't have a television. They’re too...” Severus stopped in time. He didn’t want her to know how poor his family was.
Lily had grown very quiet again. Then she took a deep breath. “How do you know about that - the Americans on the moon? None of the others know. Not that they’d care if they did.” She turned to look straight at him, her voice accusatory. “You’re not a pureblood, are you?”
Why hide it? She’ll find out eventually. Better to get it over with sooner than later. “My father’s a muggle. He doesn’t approve of all of... this.”
Lily laughed. “Well, that’s a relief. I was afraid you were one of those pureblood morons. I thought everyone in Slytherin was. I’m muggle-born myself.”
“Do they tease you about it in Gryffindor?”
“A couple tried first year. McGonagall won’t stand for it.”
“I wish Slughorn was like that.”
From that moment conversation was easy.
Severus kept to the edge of the common room as he made his way to the dormitory for the night. A group of older students was talking and laughing by the fire on the other side of the room. One glanced up.
“The place stinks of mongrel,” he commented loudly. “Hey, Rosier. You ever have to fumigate your dormitory?” Rosier laughed with the others, but his laughter was strained and uncomfortable. Thinking of spiders, no doubt.
Severus didn’t respond to the mockery, but continued calmly to the dormitory, passing Wilkes and Edison on his way to his own bed. His cloak and robe went right onto the chair next to the bed. Then he took out a plain flannel nightshirt and pulled it over his head before unfastening the belt of his gown and removing it, too. He tucked his wand into the sleeve of his nightshirt.
Lestrange. Rabastan Lestrange. That was the sixth year student who had mocked him. Severus checked his bed automatically for hexes, then climbed in and nestled in the bedclothes. He had to think of just the right response. Normally Lestrange paid no attention to him. Of course it had happened in front of Rosier, and Rosier needed to be kept in line. There’s no such thing as idle jesting. They’ll be testing you, probing you for weaknesses. Never let them find one. He smiled suddenly to himself, then rolled onto his side and went to sleep.
The next morning Severus was up and dressed first, sitting quietly on his bed reading his potions book. His very presence put a damper on the conversation of the others, and they quickly got ready for the day and hurried out of the dormitory. When Severus was sure that most of Slytherin house was awake and beginning to gather in the common room before breakfast, he stood, put his potions book into the footlocker, adjusted the wand he kept in his sleeve, donned his robe and biretta, and left the dormitory. Though he looked wrapped in his own thoughts, his black eyes were darting back and forth behind lowered eyelids, assessing the position of everyone in the room.
Just as he entered the common room, Severus glanced up. The Lestrange brothers were once again by the fireplace with Bella Black, talking and laughing loudly. He fixed his glance and the hidden wand on Rabastan’s back for two seconds, then walked around the edge of the room and out the door into the main castle. He knew that Rosier had seen him, and that Rosier’s eyes followed him.
About ten minutes later, as the Slytherins were moving out toward the Great Hall, Bella Black wrinkled her nose and said, “I don’t want to get too personal or anything, but someone should visit the lavatories more often.”
There was a general chuckle, then the others began sniffing the air as well. “Well, it isn’t me,” laughed Rodolphus Lestrange, then turned to his older brother. “I do believe you’re the one who needs a bath.”
The others began to edge away from Rabastan, laughing. The faint but unmistakable pungent odor was now permeating the air around him. In the Great Hall, the rest of Slytherin house left a comfortable space of open air between themselves and the smell. Rabastan spent all his free time in the lavatory, scrubbing his skin, but it was three days before the aroma of wet dog was gone.
Severus didn’t stay to watch Rabastan’s discomfort. He never gloated over the effects of curses because the only thing that mattered was the long-term result. This one was eminently successful, for Rosier didn’t tease him again for the rest of the year.
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