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Severus Snape knew that nothing good would ever happen to him. For starters, he survived the war. How? He did not want to know. He wished that he would have died. He was suppose to die. So even though the war was still going on around him...he ran away. Some may say that was a coward’s move. He is not a coward, but what could a barely alive man contribute to the war? The Dark Lord believed him to be dead and he wanted it to stay that way. No. He was finally going to think about himself and leave behind the wizarding world. And that’s exactly what he did. ~~~He was not sure where he ended up and he did not care. For the first few months he worked on establishing a new identity, not like it would matter, seeing as he was living in a muggle village. So far, he has not seen a sign of magic, which pleased him greatly. He lived in a small cottage on the outskirts of town, where nobody bothered him. He worked at a small bookstore as an inventory specialist in the village. It wasn’t his ideal job, but he at least didn’t have to deal with people. Even though he wanted to escape from the magical world, there was a small part of him that couldn’t. He still used his wand for things around the house and he occasionally brewed himself potions (he would never stop that) but he wanted nothing to do with the magical community. Even so, he signed himself up for the Daily Prophet. He needed to know that Harry Potter had won and that his sacrifices weren’t for nothing. What he didn’t expect though, was a whole edition basically devoted to him.
The Daily Prophet: Severus Snape a Villian or a Hero
Severus Snape the long-time potions master at Hogwarts School of Witcraft and Wizardry got his start when he was twenty-one, after renouncing his ways of being a Death Eater, has been declared a hero by The Boy Who Lived.
Harry Potter recounts how Professor Snape was working as a spy for Albus Dumbledore:
“Snape was working for Dumbledore this entire time. Upon Dumbledore’s request Snape was to be the one to kill Dumbledore..."
Severus slams the newspaper onto the table. He could not bring himself to read and relive some of the worst moments of his life. Harry Potter had shared the memories he had taken from Severus in the Shrieking Shack. He was declared a war hero, Severus thought he was far from that. He was extremely glad that he was never going to have contact with the wizarding world again, seeing as The Daily Prophet wrote an entire biography on his life, from the time he started school to the time of his supposed death. The strangest thing was that no one made mention of the fact that his body was missing. Harry Potter saw him die. There should be a body. All Severus could wonder is why whoever saved him didn’t come forward. Don’t they at least want a ‘thank you’? Reading that edition of the Daily Prophet put Severus into a worse mood than he already was. He didn’t want his whole life put on display for every witch and wizard to read about, even if he was suppose to be dead. He spent his entire adult life keeping secrets and hiding from everybody who knew him and now, the whole world knows his life story. He tried to put these thoughts out of his mind as he made his way into the village to the bookstore. The walk seemed so much longer as the thoughts of the Daily Prophet flooded his mind. So much so that he found himself on the ground. Next to him was a small brunette woman who immediately went to apologize but Severus held his hand up, effectively stopping the woman from saying anything. Severus didn’t care for apologies. All he knew was that she should’ve been paying closer attention to where she was walking. “Next time,” Severus’s voice is low, a scowl on his face, “watch where you’re going.” “Me?!? How about you! You walked right into me!” The woman shouts at him as he walks away from her, not even bothering to see if she’s okay. Severus knew that he could change everything about himself, seeing as nobody here knew him. He didn’t have to be a cold asshole that everybody hates but he doesn’t want to. He was fine with living the rest of his life in solitude. He was fine living the rest of his life without letting anybody into his life. It was what he was best at. Although, it seemed that the universe had other plans for him.
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The second thing to occur that made him know that nothing good would ever happen to him was that he kept running into the small brunette woman. At least he was no longer finding himself on the ground with these run ins. Instead, he seemed to find himself in glaring matches. Almost everyday on his way to work, he would pass this woman and she would send him a glare. A glare so bad that if looks could kill he’d be six feet in the ground. Not that he would be complaining.
This went on for a month before one day, she wasn’t there. Severus was preparing his best glare when he walked past the normal fencepost they always passed and she wasn’t there. An odd feeling passed through his chest but he thought nothing of it. He continued on his way to work and hoped that from now on he’d be able to walk to work without a woman glaring at him. Finally he could live the rest of his life in peace.
When the next day came and he didn’t see the brunette woman again, the same feeling passed through him, this time slightly stronger. Since he was a master of his emotions he put it away. The next couple days passed by him much in the same way. He would walk to work and each time he looked for the woman and when she wasn’t there he’d get the same constricting feeling pass through him. By now, he decided he couldn’t ignore the feeling, which he assumed was him enjoying the fact that she wasn’t there. Although a strange thought crossed his mind, why was he looking for the woman?
The following week came and went and Severus went about his daily life. Walk to work, look for the woman (hope that she was there, though he wasn’t going to acknowledge that thought yet), get to work, do his job, leave, arrive home and go to bed. Sprinkled throughout was him brewing a couple dreamless sleep potions to hopefully help get him through the night. Lately, they haven’t been working and Severus knew that he was probably going to need a higher dose soon. Even though he told himself he was okay living the rest of his life in solitude, with this same routine, he was starting to get a little lonely. At least at Hogwarts he had Minerva or Albus to share conversations with.
He knew that the feeling would pass. He had spent his entire life keeping people at arm's length, he didn’t need friends. He occasionally held conversations with the other employees at the bookstore but it was mostly them talking to him. To be honest, Severus didn’t really care about what they had to say. It was idle chatter to him, but a small part of him, that he refused to pay mind to, enjoyed that he was a part of those conversations.
That’s why the following Monday, walking to work and the woman was still not there, Severus started to acknowledge the feeling in his chest. He realized that he was looking forward to their daily encounters and that he actually missed them. This realization put his guard back up, he knew that he couldn’t get attached to anyone. It was a silly thought, seeing as the war was over and nobody was going to use his relationships with people against him. Those habits were so ingrained in him that Severus knew they were going to die with him.
Severus believed that this was going to be the rest of his life, he had found somebody who for some inexplicable reason drew his attention but they left him. He had poorly convinced himself that he was okay with never seeing the woman again, even if he continued to look out for her, wherever he went. He almost,
almost
, asked somebody about her. He figured that it was a small enough village that somebody would know something about her. He stopped himself just in time, before he could make a fool out of himself because, what if she wasn’t real?
Severus couldn’t believe that it took him that long before the thought crossed his mind. Maybe he didn’t want to believe that he was seeing things or maybe he hoped that it was possible to make a connection with somebody. That’s why, on the twenty-fourth of August 1998, Severus apologized.
Time seemed to stand still as Severus was walking to work on that dewy morning and he saw her. She looked the same as before, medium length brunette hair and wide brown eyes that turned into a glare at the sight of him. It took everything in him not to burst out into a smile because she remembered him. The greasy hair double agent potions master. The man that people said was quite forgettable.
“I’m sorry that we ran into each other.” Severus heard himself say. He almost thought he was having some kind of out-of-body experience.
The woman’s glare lessens but doesn’t go away. Severus could feel nervous? He wasn’t sure because it was an emotion that he buried deep within himself throughout the years. Severus almost believes that she’s going to walk away without acknowledging him, which he tells himself he would be okay with but deep down, he knows it would hurt.
She sighs, “I guess I’m sorry also.” She guesses? What is that suppose to mean?
“You guess?” Severus sneers. He just apologized for the first time in his life and he gets an ‘I guess’.
“Well yeah, I didn’t think I really needed to apologize, seeing as I wasn’t the rude one.” The woman shrugs, “I was just trying to be polite.”
“Polite?” Another sneer.
“Are you incapable of producing sentences longer than a word?” Severus couldn’t believe this woman. She had the audacity to talk to him like that. If only she knew who she was talking to. Voldemort’s right hand man. The double-agent war hero. If she knew that he could kill her in a second she wouldn’t dare talk to him like that. But, he shouldn’t be thinking like that. He doesn’t need to be the same man who instills fear into everyone who enters into his presence.
“Yes.” The woman let out a soft laugh. She then turned and walked away from him.
Severus couldn’t help but to glare at her retreating back. He knew that he was getting laughed at, he’s spent his life getting laughed at. He wasn’t sure what he was getting laughed at for, but it didn’t matter to him, he just knew that he was getting laughed at. He wasn’t going to stand to be laughed at. He didn’t know if he should find a different route to work because he wasn’t going to stand to get laughed at anymore in his life.
The next day Severus wasn’t sure what to expect. It may come as a surprise but Severus was not good with his own emotions and even more terrible at understanding other people’s emotions without the use of Legilimency. He wasn’t sure if she was going to make fun of him, laugh in his face or continue to glare at him. She didn’t do anything that he was expecting.
As they passed by each other, she smiled, gave him a slight wave, and continued on her way. Severus was taken aback, he didn’t think that anyone had ever smiled at him, especially a woman, since Lily. Now, he knew that she was making fun of him. Nobody smiles or is happy to see him. He scowled. It seemed that nowhere he went was he able to escape the mocking and laughter. It followed him everywhere. It was times like these that he wished he would have died during the Battle of Hogwarts.
That night on his way home from work he decided to find a new way to get to and from work, that way he could avoid the woman. He found that it would take him almost twice as long to and from work if he took the other way. Now, Severus is no coward, (it’s definitely not because it was a longer walk for him), so he decided to keep to his normal route. He was just going to ignore her. Maybe if she saw that her mocking was not going to affect him, she would give up. She would get bored and move on to somebody else.
~~~
His hopes were wrong. He tried to ignore her but she just continued to smile at him. All he wanted to do was live a peaceful life of solitude. Nothing about this was peaceful. He’s not a coward, but the idea of moving somewhere else and starting over sounded quite appealing. Why could he just not have a peaceful life? He took to sneering at her as she passed but even that didn’t deter her. Severus knew, in the back of his mind, that he could just confront her but the last time he said something, she laughed at him. He wasn’t going to add more fuel to the fire.
Severus was reaching his breaking point. He was either going to hex the woman or he was going to talk to her. Thankfully, it didn’t come to the point where he had to hex her, because she approached him.
“Hi. I feel like I’ve tortured you enough..” -see, Severus knew he was being mocked- “...I hope you can forgive me.” Somewhere Severus lost what she was saying.
“Can you repeat that?” Severus tried to keep his tone neutral, but his hatred for the woman seemed to float through into those few words.
“I’m sorry. I was going to approach you sooner but you started looking at me like you hated me.” The woman laughs. “I’ve been replaying our previous conversation and I hope you know that I wasn’t laughing at you. I thought it was funny how you responded to my question with yet another one word answer.”
The woman thought he was funny? Severus narrowed his eyes slightly, not trusting a word this woman said. Without the use of magic, he realized how bad he really was at reading people. He genuinely could not tell if she was being honest with him. Nobody in his life had ever found him funny. He wasn’t even trying to be funny.
“I hope you can forgive me. I thought you would’ve realized that I was just trying to make a friend, but maybe I went about it the wrong way. I’d like to be friends.” She gives Severus a hesitant smile. She wants to be friends with him?
He didn’t trust a single word that she said. His only friend had turned on him. Nothing good has come from him having a friend. But, maybe, this time could be different. “I don’t need friends.” Severus hears himself say.
The woman’s face falls. Severus almost feels guilty for saying it. He leaves the woman standing there as he continues his walk to work. As he works, the little guilt that he felt before has now turned into a pit in his stomach. Severus gets angry at himself for feeling like that. He’s made everyone hate him in his life, what’s one more person?
The thoughts continue all throughout the night, he thought that maybe once he was home, back in his solitude, he wouldn’t feel the guilt. That maybe, the guilt had a time limit. That he had felt guilty for long enough. That wasn’t the case. The pit in his stomach made it hard for him to sleep. The next morning Severus is in the worst mood of his life, he almost thinks about not going to work but realizes that if he stays home it’ll give him more chances to think about why he feels guilty.
Severus’s mood is so awful that he feels like he’s back at Hogwarts where everybody avoided him because they were scared of him. He hopes that if the woman is still going to take the same route that she’ll forget about asking to be his friend and continue on with her life. His hope is very short lived because the woman has decided to walk with him!
“I know you said you didn’t want friends but I don’t believe that. I’m Indigo Winters.” Indigo? The thought of that being a weird name floats through Severus’s head and he’s almost tempted to say as much.
“I know, it’s a weird name but it was my mother’s favorite color.”
“I don’t care.”
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The third thing to happen to Severus Snape that let him know that nothing good would ever happen to him is that Indigo Winters never gave up on him.