A Chance at Life
folder
Harry Potter › Slash - Male/Male › Harry/Snape
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
15
Views:
13,608
Reviews:
76
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
1
Category:
Harry Potter › Slash - Male/Male › Harry/Snape
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
15
Views:
13,608
Reviews:
76
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
1
Disclaimer:
I do not own Harry Potter; None of the original stories and/or characters are mine in any way nor do I make any money from these writings.
A Chance at Life
Warnings: This story will contain both het and Slash parings in the future. It's also a vampire, time travel, and AU story. Finally, this is the first story I have ever written so it's not great but I think it's acceptable, suggestions & tips to help me improve are very welcome. =)
Note: Numbers in parenthesis are numbered footnotes you will find at the end of the chapter.
A Chance at Life
Prologue
Eight-year-old Severus Snape was tired…so tired of always hurting...always worrying. For once, he wanted to fall asleep without aching somewhere. He wanted to wake up without worrying about his mother or dreading another day in which he would be hurt or hated. Severus just wanted to be happy, maybe even have a friend.
But most of all he wanted someone that would love him, someone that could fight for him and would fight for him.
On this cold January morning, like many other such mornings, he dreamed of such a person. Even though deep down his inherent rationality kept his expectations rooted in reality, hope was the only thing he had left to cling to.
But what Severus did not know was that at that exact moment an event was taking place that would soon change his life, and the very fabric of time, forever…
________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 1: Sometimes, Hope is All it Takes
Harry Potter woke up feeling very disoriented and with a pounding headache. He sat up slowly, took a look around, and realized he was nowhere near Kansas anymore (1)…
It was either very early or very late; he wasn’t sure if he was looking at a sunrise or a sunset. Not to mention that he wasn’t completely sure he knew where he was. It seemed to be the small park at Spinner's End, but something about it didn’t quite fit with how he remembered it. He had absolutely no idea how had he gotten there or why. A few seconds later, he stood up and looked himself over.
He was wearing a dark-green shirt, black trousers and boots below a black wizarding robe and his full length cloak. He still had his choker (a black, thin band made to magically adjust to the wearer) which he used to carry his miniaturized trunk, but his wand was nowhere in sight.
“Damn,” he cursed softly, not detecting anything dangerous nearby. He summoned Gryffindor’s sword as a precaution and focused on the situation. First, he decided to verify he was where he thought he was. He walked around the surrounding area warily until he came upon a copy of the Daily Prophet, which was really strange since the Prophet had been out of circulation for over a year now. Curious, he picked it up…it was dated January 6, 1968.
He forced the surprise away and focused on making sense of the situation. He clearly remembered slipping away from the battlefield and going to his hideout to take care of his wounds, taking a shower and going to sleep. Now here he was at Spinner’s End park in the same clothes and accessories he had gone to bed with (with the exception of his wand) and apparently somehow in the year 1968. He was beyond confused, but since he could find no trace of either Voldemort or his Death Eaters, he settled on managing things as they come up. He was only glad paranoia still made him sleep prepared or this could have turned out a hundred times worse. Moody would have been so proud.
“I might as well confirm the date,” he whispered to himself. He banished the sword and started walking towards the little magical town’s commerce center (2). Now that he’d had a little time to get his bearings, he figured it should be around 8 o’clock in the morning so a newspaper stand should be open or will be open soon.
He acquired the newspaper and had some breakfast at a nearby café. Still, the only important fact he learned reading the Prophet was that the date was actually January 9th but there were no articles of interest. So he set off for the park once again, needing to think…
The park was deserted. He was sitting in a bench by the pond in the middle of the park, the silence and crisp morning air helping him to relax and think about the situation he found himself in.
He had gone to bed thinking that he had finally fulfilled the prophesy and would be able to ‘die off’ to the rest of the wizarding world. Everything had been planned for his ‘death,’ even going so far as to leave a will in case things turned for the worse. He knew he had to be AKed by Voldemort in order to destroy the last horcrux, and given his unique condition he had a 50 percent chance of making it out of it alive.
He remembered back to his 4th year when everything had started. He had felt so alone and abandoned by his friends and then suddenly he was in constant pain, his bones and muscles aching sporadically, for no reason at all. It had been the one and only time he had gone to Madam Pomfrey on his own initiative. It had been a horrible beginning to his 4th year and the pain continued until the end of the year, Madam Pomfrey could do nothing to help him. In the end, Madam Pomfrey and Snape had joined forces trying to find out what was wrong with him.
As it turned out, the Basilisk back at the end of his second year had bitten deep, injecting a substantial amount of venom into his bone marrow. Fawkes’ tears had only been able to neutralize the venom, not destroy it. As a result, the venom and phoenix tears had spread and bonded with his bone marrow during his third year. The reason for his pain during fourth year came about as a manifestation of physical changes taking place in response to the biological and magical alterations happening to his body.
Through a barrage of tests and experiments in the next couple of years they were able to figure out that the Basilisk venom provided Harry with an immunity to poison and slowed down his body’s aging process, thus as Harry grew his body’s aging process will reach a point of stasis until his body was able start to age normally once again. They had no idea how long he would be stuck on that indeterminate stage however, only that he would stop aging somewhere between his 16th-18th birthday. Snape theorized it could last anywhere from 600-800 years, depending how long it took for the magical properties in the venom and/or phoenix tears to deteriorate within his body. No one could be sure how the killing curse would interact with these anomalies and, if he survived Voldemort, what state his body would be left in.
The phoenix tears produced their own alterations as well. Harry became more receptive to the magical world around him and to the magic within himself. Though he had always had good instincts they became increasingly accurate, to the point that Harry developed a clairvoyance kind of ability, getting short visions of past,present,or future events in certain circumstances, or if he concentrated hard enough. This ability became invaluable while on the run with Ron and Hermione, allowing them to remain a step ahead of the Death Eaters with a bit more ease. His only regret was that he had not been able to understand his ability in time to prevent Sirius’ death.
Harry himself changed, from a naïve young boy to a more insightful individual. He took on a tendency to mask his emotions in public and a bit of a sarcastic or aloof manner to anyone he didn’t trust (which he blamed on Snape's influence). Though he remained eternally optimistic about the goodness in people in general he remained cognizant of the fact that as a whole, magical people will still look for solutions to their problems in those they considered powerful, case in point, Dumbledore, Harry, and obviously Voldemort. The only variant was who they decided to follow and Harry was tired of it all. He just wanted to be left alone, to be allowed to have a life of his own without having the Prophet reporting if he was a parselmouth, if he liked to eat sausages for breakfast, or if he had picked his nose in his last public appearance. Once he had fulfilled his duty to the wizarding world ‘dying’ gave him the perfect way out and those he cared about understood his decision well enough not to contest it.
Now, instead of a well deserved seclusion, he was once again up to his neck in trouble and this time he didn’t even know how it came to be that way. So, he sat on his park bench and tried to come up with a plan of action. His instincts were telling him that there was nothing he could do to change what had happened and that whatever or whoever made this happen had not done so wishing him harm. The only thing he could do now was to try to live as peacefully as possible and try to keep out of too much trouble, and so he sat there and planned…
HPSSHPSSHPSS
Sunset had long since passed and he was more or less confidant that he would be able to make due; which is why he was now happy to contemplate the reflection of a beautiful overcast moon on the black pond in front of him for a moment. It reminded Harry of many a moonlit walk he had with Marcus. He'd always liked cloudy moons. Soon after, he drank down one of the nutrition potions he kept in his trunk and stood up to apparate to the Leaky Cauldron for the night.
Suddenly Harry detected a presence rushing towards him and instinctively reached for his wand (which he didn’t have) and braced himself just in time for a small, dark figure to knock him off his feet. It all happened too fast for him to do anything but try and keep the thing’s fangs away from his face and curse himself silently for not summoning his sword instead. Both of them rolled around the edge of the pond for some seconds until Harry unexpectedly got a glimpse of his attacker.
He was so shocked by what he was seeing that he got distracted and his attacker took the chance to bite down firmly on Harry’s right wrist (which was facing outwards); his radial artery in perfect position for the assailant to bite into with long upper canines.
Harry stopped struggling and slowly sat up to look at the child that was slurping noisily as it fed from him. Indeed, the child was feeding with such hunger that Harry found himself incapable of pushing him off his arm. Instead, he calmly broadened his senses to get a feel of things. All he was able to detect from the child was an intense hunger but he found no wish to hurt or even attack him. The child was merely acting on instinct.
What’s more, he felt an instant connection to the child, a sudden completion that settled that nagging sense of misplacement he’d felt since waking up that morning. He also looked somewhat familiar to Harry, so he call out softly to him, “Child...”
The child was calming down, his drinking slowing down until stopping completely a few seconds later. Realization came slowly into his eyes and with it a growing expression of horror. The child quickly let go of his wrist and tried to run back into the darkness but Harry managed to catch him as he turned away from him. He pulled the struggling child onto his lap and held him against his chest. Securing the child’s arms with a firm hold, they now both sat facing the pond.
“Child, I won’t hurt you.” Harry winced as the child tried to bite his arms in an effort to get him to let go.
“On my magic I swear I won’t hurt you intentionally, but I reserve the right to act in self defense,” Harry vowed in order to get the child to at least listen to him. The child stopped struggling and sat rigidly in Harry’s lap, breathing harshly.
“I’m sorry I have to hold you against your will but I can’t trust you not to try and run away again. So unfortunately we are gonna have to talk like this, okay?”
The child didn’t say anything; Harry sighed tiredly, he could already tell this was going to take a while.
“All right, look, I know you had no idea what you were doing a few minutes ago and I’m assuming you don’t know the reason why either,” he paused, waiting for the child to either confirm or deny his theory. He didn’t.
“You have attacked me and fed from me. I really don’t want to turn you in because frankly, I wouldn’t trust the Ministry with my worst enemy, much less with a young child. However, if you don’t start talking, I won’t have any other choice but deliver you to the DRCMC (Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures). So what do you say you help me out here, hmm?”
“All right,” the child said in a small but obviously angry voice, confirming Harry’s hunch that the child was aware of the magical world. Keeping his intuitive senses open Harry continued, “Good. First of all my name is Harry Potter and I’m a 19-year-old muggle-born. And you are..?”
“Severus.”
“Severus…” Harry waited for him to elaborate…..and waited some more…..
“Oh, come on, I’m going to need to know more than that if I’m to help you…”
“Stop it! I just attacked and hurt you and you don’t know the first thing about me, so you have no reason to be nice to me. Just tell me whatever it is you want so I can leave,” Severus said is obvious annoyance.
Harry remained silent; perhaps the name was not a coincidence after all…
“Believe it or not, I just want to help you.”
“Don’t think me a fool just because I’m a child. No one is ever just being nice,” practically hissing by the time he finished speaking.
“We’re gonna be here all night if you can’t trust me a bit. What must I do to get you to believe me?”
A long silence.
“Ostendo sum verum.”
“And just where did you learn about that spell?”
“I’m not an idiot! I can read just fine you know!”
Harry really had to fight hard not to burst out laughing; Severus was as prickly as a cactus but he couldn’t help thinking his attitude kind of cute.
“Well then we have a problem since I am currently without a wand. A rather unfortunate accident I must say. Or hadn’t you wondered why I’m restraining you purely by physical means?”
“Makes sense I guess…” Harry could practically hear him scowling.
“Here’s an idea: I’ll take you home tonight and we’ll continue this discussion tomorrow afternoon. Besides, if you are what I think you are, you are going to need to feed again tomorrow and given that I’m the only one that knows about this particular craving of yours, I volunteer to be dinner for another day. What do you think?”
“That you will never be accused of eloquence,” Severus snapped. “Did you have to make it sound so disgusting?”
Harry burst out laughing, and here he’d always thought Hermione was the only child to ever use words like ‘eloquence’ in casual conversation. Though he shouldn’t have been surprised, the Severus he knew was an exceptionally intelligent individual after all.
“I take that to mean you accept my proposal then?” He asked in between chuckles.
“It’s not like I have any other options now do I?”
“A simple ‘yes’ would have been fine you know?” Harry shook his head gently at Severus’ returned silence.
He then stood up slowly, allowing Severus to get to his feet beside him, making sure to keep a firm grip on Severus’ right hand but being careful not to hurt him. They both took a moment to take a good look at each other. Since Severus’ frown seemed to be getting bigger by the second Harry made sure to keep his face completely blank during his own scrutiny.
Severus was quite small, standing about 3’10’’ (117 cm) with intense black eyes, a slightly large nose, and loose shoulder-length black hair. He seemed to be very slim under his baggy clothes and though the countenance looking up at him was decidedly unfriendly, Harry couldn’t help but find Severus an endearing child. Harry smiled gently.
“Come on, let’s get you home. Which way?”
Severus glared at him and then started walking away from the pond. Harry pressed his left wrist firmly to his body (just below his ribs) in order to help stop any more bleeding from the bite and hurried to keep up with his disgruntled companion.
Things were finally becoming clear...
_______________________________________________________________
Footnotes:
1 For those of you who don’t care for The Wizard of Oz, I simply mean he’s no longer home.
2 I know Spinner's End is a muggle town and that Snape is a half-blood in canon but I needed to change things a bit…
Note: Numbers in parenthesis are numbered footnotes you will find at the end of the chapter.
A Chance at Life
Prologue
Eight-year-old Severus Snape was tired…so tired of always hurting...always worrying. For once, he wanted to fall asleep without aching somewhere. He wanted to wake up without worrying about his mother or dreading another day in which he would be hurt or hated. Severus just wanted to be happy, maybe even have a friend.
But most of all he wanted someone that would love him, someone that could fight for him and would fight for him.
On this cold January morning, like many other such mornings, he dreamed of such a person. Even though deep down his inherent rationality kept his expectations rooted in reality, hope was the only thing he had left to cling to.
But what Severus did not know was that at that exact moment an event was taking place that would soon change his life, and the very fabric of time, forever…
________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 1: Sometimes, Hope is All it Takes
Harry Potter woke up feeling very disoriented and with a pounding headache. He sat up slowly, took a look around, and realized he was nowhere near Kansas anymore (1)…
It was either very early or very late; he wasn’t sure if he was looking at a sunrise or a sunset. Not to mention that he wasn’t completely sure he knew where he was. It seemed to be the small park at Spinner's End, but something about it didn’t quite fit with how he remembered it. He had absolutely no idea how had he gotten there or why. A few seconds later, he stood up and looked himself over.
He was wearing a dark-green shirt, black trousers and boots below a black wizarding robe and his full length cloak. He still had his choker (a black, thin band made to magically adjust to the wearer) which he used to carry his miniaturized trunk, but his wand was nowhere in sight.
“Damn,” he cursed softly, not detecting anything dangerous nearby. He summoned Gryffindor’s sword as a precaution and focused on the situation. First, he decided to verify he was where he thought he was. He walked around the surrounding area warily until he came upon a copy of the Daily Prophet, which was really strange since the Prophet had been out of circulation for over a year now. Curious, he picked it up…it was dated January 6, 1968.
He forced the surprise away and focused on making sense of the situation. He clearly remembered slipping away from the battlefield and going to his hideout to take care of his wounds, taking a shower and going to sleep. Now here he was at Spinner’s End park in the same clothes and accessories he had gone to bed with (with the exception of his wand) and apparently somehow in the year 1968. He was beyond confused, but since he could find no trace of either Voldemort or his Death Eaters, he settled on managing things as they come up. He was only glad paranoia still made him sleep prepared or this could have turned out a hundred times worse. Moody would have been so proud.
“I might as well confirm the date,” he whispered to himself. He banished the sword and started walking towards the little magical town’s commerce center (2). Now that he’d had a little time to get his bearings, he figured it should be around 8 o’clock in the morning so a newspaper stand should be open or will be open soon.
He acquired the newspaper and had some breakfast at a nearby café. Still, the only important fact he learned reading the Prophet was that the date was actually January 9th but there were no articles of interest. So he set off for the park once again, needing to think…
The park was deserted. He was sitting in a bench by the pond in the middle of the park, the silence and crisp morning air helping him to relax and think about the situation he found himself in.
He had gone to bed thinking that he had finally fulfilled the prophesy and would be able to ‘die off’ to the rest of the wizarding world. Everything had been planned for his ‘death,’ even going so far as to leave a will in case things turned for the worse. He knew he had to be AKed by Voldemort in order to destroy the last horcrux, and given his unique condition he had a 50 percent chance of making it out of it alive.
He remembered back to his 4th year when everything had started. He had felt so alone and abandoned by his friends and then suddenly he was in constant pain, his bones and muscles aching sporadically, for no reason at all. It had been the one and only time he had gone to Madam Pomfrey on his own initiative. It had been a horrible beginning to his 4th year and the pain continued until the end of the year, Madam Pomfrey could do nothing to help him. In the end, Madam Pomfrey and Snape had joined forces trying to find out what was wrong with him.
As it turned out, the Basilisk back at the end of his second year had bitten deep, injecting a substantial amount of venom into his bone marrow. Fawkes’ tears had only been able to neutralize the venom, not destroy it. As a result, the venom and phoenix tears had spread and bonded with his bone marrow during his third year. The reason for his pain during fourth year came about as a manifestation of physical changes taking place in response to the biological and magical alterations happening to his body.
Through a barrage of tests and experiments in the next couple of years they were able to figure out that the Basilisk venom provided Harry with an immunity to poison and slowed down his body’s aging process, thus as Harry grew his body’s aging process will reach a point of stasis until his body was able start to age normally once again. They had no idea how long he would be stuck on that indeterminate stage however, only that he would stop aging somewhere between his 16th-18th birthday. Snape theorized it could last anywhere from 600-800 years, depending how long it took for the magical properties in the venom and/or phoenix tears to deteriorate within his body. No one could be sure how the killing curse would interact with these anomalies and, if he survived Voldemort, what state his body would be left in.
The phoenix tears produced their own alterations as well. Harry became more receptive to the magical world around him and to the magic within himself. Though he had always had good instincts they became increasingly accurate, to the point that Harry developed a clairvoyance kind of ability, getting short visions of past,present,or future events in certain circumstances, or if he concentrated hard enough. This ability became invaluable while on the run with Ron and Hermione, allowing them to remain a step ahead of the Death Eaters with a bit more ease. His only regret was that he had not been able to understand his ability in time to prevent Sirius’ death.
Harry himself changed, from a naïve young boy to a more insightful individual. He took on a tendency to mask his emotions in public and a bit of a sarcastic or aloof manner to anyone he didn’t trust (which he blamed on Snape's influence). Though he remained eternally optimistic about the goodness in people in general he remained cognizant of the fact that as a whole, magical people will still look for solutions to their problems in those they considered powerful, case in point, Dumbledore, Harry, and obviously Voldemort. The only variant was who they decided to follow and Harry was tired of it all. He just wanted to be left alone, to be allowed to have a life of his own without having the Prophet reporting if he was a parselmouth, if he liked to eat sausages for breakfast, or if he had picked his nose in his last public appearance. Once he had fulfilled his duty to the wizarding world ‘dying’ gave him the perfect way out and those he cared about understood his decision well enough not to contest it.
Now, instead of a well deserved seclusion, he was once again up to his neck in trouble and this time he didn’t even know how it came to be that way. So, he sat on his park bench and tried to come up with a plan of action. His instincts were telling him that there was nothing he could do to change what had happened and that whatever or whoever made this happen had not done so wishing him harm. The only thing he could do now was to try to live as peacefully as possible and try to keep out of too much trouble, and so he sat there and planned…
HPSSHPSSHPSS
Sunset had long since passed and he was more or less confidant that he would be able to make due; which is why he was now happy to contemplate the reflection of a beautiful overcast moon on the black pond in front of him for a moment. It reminded Harry of many a moonlit walk he had with Marcus. He'd always liked cloudy moons. Soon after, he drank down one of the nutrition potions he kept in his trunk and stood up to apparate to the Leaky Cauldron for the night.
Suddenly Harry detected a presence rushing towards him and instinctively reached for his wand (which he didn’t have) and braced himself just in time for a small, dark figure to knock him off his feet. It all happened too fast for him to do anything but try and keep the thing’s fangs away from his face and curse himself silently for not summoning his sword instead. Both of them rolled around the edge of the pond for some seconds until Harry unexpectedly got a glimpse of his attacker.
He was so shocked by what he was seeing that he got distracted and his attacker took the chance to bite down firmly on Harry’s right wrist (which was facing outwards); his radial artery in perfect position for the assailant to bite into with long upper canines.
Harry stopped struggling and slowly sat up to look at the child that was slurping noisily as it fed from him. Indeed, the child was feeding with such hunger that Harry found himself incapable of pushing him off his arm. Instead, he calmly broadened his senses to get a feel of things. All he was able to detect from the child was an intense hunger but he found no wish to hurt or even attack him. The child was merely acting on instinct.
What’s more, he felt an instant connection to the child, a sudden completion that settled that nagging sense of misplacement he’d felt since waking up that morning. He also looked somewhat familiar to Harry, so he call out softly to him, “Child...”
The child was calming down, his drinking slowing down until stopping completely a few seconds later. Realization came slowly into his eyes and with it a growing expression of horror. The child quickly let go of his wrist and tried to run back into the darkness but Harry managed to catch him as he turned away from him. He pulled the struggling child onto his lap and held him against his chest. Securing the child’s arms with a firm hold, they now both sat facing the pond.
“Child, I won’t hurt you.” Harry winced as the child tried to bite his arms in an effort to get him to let go.
“On my magic I swear I won’t hurt you intentionally, but I reserve the right to act in self defense,” Harry vowed in order to get the child to at least listen to him. The child stopped struggling and sat rigidly in Harry’s lap, breathing harshly.
“I’m sorry I have to hold you against your will but I can’t trust you not to try and run away again. So unfortunately we are gonna have to talk like this, okay?”
The child didn’t say anything; Harry sighed tiredly, he could already tell this was going to take a while.
“All right, look, I know you had no idea what you were doing a few minutes ago and I’m assuming you don’t know the reason why either,” he paused, waiting for the child to either confirm or deny his theory. He didn’t.
“You have attacked me and fed from me. I really don’t want to turn you in because frankly, I wouldn’t trust the Ministry with my worst enemy, much less with a young child. However, if you don’t start talking, I won’t have any other choice but deliver you to the DRCMC (Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures). So what do you say you help me out here, hmm?”
“All right,” the child said in a small but obviously angry voice, confirming Harry’s hunch that the child was aware of the magical world. Keeping his intuitive senses open Harry continued, “Good. First of all my name is Harry Potter and I’m a 19-year-old muggle-born. And you are..?”
“Severus.”
“Severus…” Harry waited for him to elaborate…..and waited some more…..
“Oh, come on, I’m going to need to know more than that if I’m to help you…”
“Stop it! I just attacked and hurt you and you don’t know the first thing about me, so you have no reason to be nice to me. Just tell me whatever it is you want so I can leave,” Severus said is obvious annoyance.
Harry remained silent; perhaps the name was not a coincidence after all…
“Believe it or not, I just want to help you.”
“Don’t think me a fool just because I’m a child. No one is ever just being nice,” practically hissing by the time he finished speaking.
“We’re gonna be here all night if you can’t trust me a bit. What must I do to get you to believe me?”
A long silence.
“Ostendo sum verum.”
“And just where did you learn about that spell?”
“I’m not an idiot! I can read just fine you know!”
Harry really had to fight hard not to burst out laughing; Severus was as prickly as a cactus but he couldn’t help thinking his attitude kind of cute.
“Well then we have a problem since I am currently without a wand. A rather unfortunate accident I must say. Or hadn’t you wondered why I’m restraining you purely by physical means?”
“Makes sense I guess…” Harry could practically hear him scowling.
“Here’s an idea: I’ll take you home tonight and we’ll continue this discussion tomorrow afternoon. Besides, if you are what I think you are, you are going to need to feed again tomorrow and given that I’m the only one that knows about this particular craving of yours, I volunteer to be dinner for another day. What do you think?”
“That you will never be accused of eloquence,” Severus snapped. “Did you have to make it sound so disgusting?”
Harry burst out laughing, and here he’d always thought Hermione was the only child to ever use words like ‘eloquence’ in casual conversation. Though he shouldn’t have been surprised, the Severus he knew was an exceptionally intelligent individual after all.
“I take that to mean you accept my proposal then?” He asked in between chuckles.
“It’s not like I have any other options now do I?”
“A simple ‘yes’ would have been fine you know?” Harry shook his head gently at Severus’ returned silence.
He then stood up slowly, allowing Severus to get to his feet beside him, making sure to keep a firm grip on Severus’ right hand but being careful not to hurt him. They both took a moment to take a good look at each other. Since Severus’ frown seemed to be getting bigger by the second Harry made sure to keep his face completely blank during his own scrutiny.
Severus was quite small, standing about 3’10’’ (117 cm) with intense black eyes, a slightly large nose, and loose shoulder-length black hair. He seemed to be very slim under his baggy clothes and though the countenance looking up at him was decidedly unfriendly, Harry couldn’t help but find Severus an endearing child. Harry smiled gently.
“Come on, let’s get you home. Which way?”
Severus glared at him and then started walking away from the pond. Harry pressed his left wrist firmly to his body (just below his ribs) in order to help stop any more bleeding from the bite and hurried to keep up with his disgruntled companion.
Things were finally becoming clear...
_______________________________________________________________
Footnotes:
1 For those of you who don’t care for The Wizard of Oz, I simply mean he’s no longer home.
2 I know Spinner's End is a muggle town and that Snape is a half-blood in canon but I needed to change things a bit…