"-Mudblood? But you call everyone like me that, Severus. What makes me any different?"
At the entrance of Gryffindor Tower, Severus Snape blinked hard. He had just seen a girl with a pair of sparkling green eyes.
She cast him a contemptuous glance, turned her back, and climbed through the portrait hole.
A thick wooden board slammed shut right in front of him, covering the entrance.
On the board, a plump woman yawned impatiently.
"All right, all right, back to your dormitory," the Fat Lady mumbled drowsily. "Students shouldn't be wandering the halls at this hour."
Wait.. how did I end up here?!
A sudden, searing pain ripped through Snape's head, as if his skull were being split in two.
His vision blurred. With a heavy thud, he collapsed to his knees, elbows braced against the floor, trembling violently.
Chaotic memories churned in his mind: Spinner's End, Hogwarts, spells flying through the air, Lily Evans...
The flashes came like shattered pieces of a puzzle, unfamiliar yet intimate, each sharp as a blade, slicing his head apart.
He didn't know how long it lasted, but finally the pain began to ebb. Weakly, he lifted his head, and realized the truth of his situation.
He had transmigrated.. and this was Gryffindor Tower.
The girl who had just left, was Lily Evans.
And his identity now, was Severus Snape.
As he sorted the tangle of thoughts and memories colliding in his mind, one fact became painfully clear:
Earlier this very afternoon, after the O.W.L. exams, humiliated by James Potter, he had lashed out and called Lily that unforgivable word.
Moments ago, he had still been making his final, desperate defense.
But obviously, he had failed.
According to the story as it was written, this was the breaking point, Snape and Lily parting ways forever.
"Lily..." he whispered softly. "How did it come to this..."
Two emotions warred violently in his chest. Knowing how things would end, he even felt an impulse to barge straight into Gryffindor dormitory and explain himself to her.
But another voice told him if he really did that, it would only make things worse.
Even now, those bright green eyes were growing hazy in his mind. He could no longer tell what his feelings for Lily truly were...
Was it love? He wasn't sure.
Was it desire? He didn't know.
The past felt both painfully close and unbearably distant.
Under the dim torchlight flickering against the stone walls of the corridor, Snape staggered toward the marble staircase.
Not long ago, he had been happily playing Hogwarts Legacy at home.
He had only been pausing for a moment, taking a break from running his fifth-year transfer student all over the map, casting spells at everything in sight, just to put a couple drops of eyedrops in his dry eyes.
Who could have imagined, with a blink, he would end up here, at Hogwarts, in the summer of 1976.
Instinctively skipping the vanishing step, he slumped against the stone staircase, trying to piece together the flood of tangled memories.
"I haven't called home in over a week... my monthly report still isn't done... what should I do from here on..."
The silence pressed down on him until he could hardly breathe.
"But, looking on the bright side..."
After a long time, he finally reached into his robes and pulled out a wand of ebony wood with a dragon heartstring core. With a gentle flick, the tip emitted a thin beam of light.
"Magic."
Staring at the wavering glow, Severus Snape murmured wearily:
"Well, here I am... From today onward, I'll be the new 'half-blood Prince.'"
"Nox."
The glow at the wand's tip vanished at once.
He pulled up the sleeve of his left arm and checked. Thankfully, the Dark Mark had not yet been branded there.
Deeper and deeper he went, down beneath the castle, until he reached a bare, damp stone wall.
He bowed his head in thought, then recalled, the new password this week was Pureblood Forever.
Ha. "Pureblood forever?"
Wasn't Tom Riddle himself a half-blood?
Snape rolled his eyes at the blank wall.
At his whispered words, the concealed stone door slowly swung open.
He descended the spiral staircase lined with tapestries.
The Slytherin common room was a long, low underground chamber. The walls and ceiling were built from rough stone; round lamps, glowing with eerie green light, dangled on chains from above.
Even in summer, the chamber was chill.
In front of an ornate carved mantelpiece, a fire crackled and popped. The warm red glow of the flames mingled with the lamps' green light, casting shadows over several Slytherin students lounging in carved armchairs.
Among them, besides a few younger students, Snape spotted one of his roommates, Patrick Abbot.
Sitting alone, Patrick was hunched under the lamplight, absorbed in a thick, leather-bound tome: Advanced Rune Translations.
Patrick had never shown the slightest interest, indeed, outright disgust, for the so-called "jokes" Mulciber and Avery liked to play on Muggle-born students.
And because of that, he had never treated Snape kindly either.
As a pure-blood Slytherin from one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, Patrick's attitude was unusual, to say the least.
Ignoring the curious glances of others, Snape walked straight toward the boys' dormitory, then slipped into the washroom.
The silver lamps in the washroom glowed the same shade of dark green.
Lake water lapped softly against the window at the far end. Occasionally, huge shadows glided past outside.
Snape studied the "new face" in the mirror and muttered under his breath:
"How is this black? Why'd they cast a Black guy to play him?
"James might be a cunt, but you can't just accuse him of being racist..."
The reflection showed a body thin but still wiry enough. His skin, however, was deathly pale, like a plant raised entirely in darkness.
His straight, greasy black hair framed his face. His nose was long and hooked, jutting sharply downward.
Suddenly, the humiliation from earlier in the day surged back uncontrollably in his mind.
The beech tree... boredom... Snivellus... choking soap bubbles... robes dragged through the dirt... the cheers and laughter of the crowd... "stinking little Mudblood"...
His breathing shook beyond control. His facial muscles felt numb, his eyes brimming with fury.
In that daze, his reflection in the mirror seemed to blend into the figure standing before it.
Slowly, Snape lifted his wand. One hand swept back his hair; the other guided the wand-tip, tracing lightly along the strands in the lamplight.
Locks of hair drifted down.
Black eyes locked onto black eyes as Snape muttered softly to himself:
"James Potter... things between us are far from over..."