THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE.

[severus]

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{ A B O U T . Y O U }

Name: Fief.
Gender: Femme fatale.
Age: Seventeen.
E-mail: [e-mail]
Twitter: LancasterRose.
Years of RPG Experience: Five.
Other: removed by staff

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{ Q U I C K . Q U I Z }

How did you find us? A wonderful webring for which I shall forever be thankful. <3
What about ISS inspired you to join? The wonderful people, the hilarious company, the amazing and inspiring threads, and the whole family dynamic, really, that is so integral to ISS and is so often missing from other sites.
Do you have any suggestions for us? Are you kidding? This site is perfect and I am just so thrilled to be here! No complaints from me, siriusly..

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{ A B O U T . T H E . C H A R A C T E R }

Name: Severus Tobias Snape.
Age: Eighteen.*
Gender: Male.
Year: Slytherin Graduate.
Face Claim: Cillian Murphy.

Canon or Original? Canon.

Facial Properties:

I’ve often been told I’m hard to look at. Which, of course, is not exactly what I would call the most pleasing information, but given the fact that I share half of my father’s genes, I suppose it is understandable. Fortunately, one of my saving graces is the inheritance of my mother’s black hair, traditional of the Prince family, and the accompanying pale skin. From my father I received unnaturally miniscule and unattractive eyes (which I’ve often been told resemble bottomless pits) and the cursed overhanging nose which bends and protrudes unevenly, spreading its jagged shadow all over the contours of my otherwise nearly tolerable face. My eyebrows fall close to the tip of my eyelids and are rarely combed or cleaned or dealt with in such a way as to make them more appealing – I have never really found the point in such an act, anyway – and, much to my dismay, a small stubble has recently surfaced on the tip of my chin. I really lack the time or motivation to do anything about that. As with my teeth, which are uneven and admittedly a bit creamy in hue. Lack of Muggle dentistry seems to have caught up with me in that regard, though I do not blame my mother for not being able to afford it. It seemed like a rather barbaric ordeal, in any event, and I do not mind having never suffered it. An ordeal, I believe, which is akin to showering. My father showered over-zealously and I’d be damned if I mirrored his actions in any way, thus I choose to bathe only when I can barely tolerate myself, and even then it is done sparingly. My hair, being so treated, falls limply and raggedly to each shoulder and is usually covered with a thin film of grease (or, so I have been told, as I really do not notice anything of the like). Friends have told me my lips are thin and pale and I take their word for it, as it sounds as though that would be a fitting description. I do not really notice, nor do I look in the mirror long enough to try. When I was younger, Lily informed me that I had a square-shaped face and jaw, which, according to her, was moderately desirable. Obviously, she was just behaving as a young woman ought to – with flattery. Either way, she says my face is square and that my chin is cleft, and I suppose I believe her.

Physique:

Having been born into a family of gnome-like members, it was unusual for me to reach the height that I eventually did: six foot two. My mother was merely five foot one, and my father only an inch and a half taller. I must admit that I was rather proud to one day tower over that pitiful man; yes, after I had reached fifteen I was taller than he had been at forty. He didn’t quite like that. Though he didn’t quite like anything. Mother seemed to be proud of me, though, and explained that my stature probably came from the Prince side of the family – the only side of my genealogy that I really recognized at that time. She told me she thought it would be nice if I played Quidditch, that I was certainly lanky and thin enough to pull off the position of Chaser, but such a sport was not for me. Not that I feared aerial sports or anything of that ridiculous nature, but I merely did not work well in a team. More specifically, I did not like working in a team. My ideas and tactics were surely better than the rest of my peers’ pitiful attempts and I really did not see a benefit to my joining a team where I would be the only one actually using my brain. Thus I decided to even forgo the purchasing of a broom until a month after I had graduated and such an accessory was necessary to my moving about independently. I’m working on developing a technique where I can fly without the use of a broom, but that will take some time to master and without the constant tutelage of Professor Dumbledore and Professor Slughorn I fear it will be all the more difficult. I do not completely rely on them, obviously, but having two who already have mastered the spell at arm’s length is rather convenient. In any event, mother wasn’t the only one who suggested I join a sport: Lily thought that perhaps it would have a positive impact on my personality if I were to actively try to get along with others and join some sort of team, but I begged to differ. The only persons I can tolerate are limited to five and of them there are none on the Quidditch team. Besides, I’m not built very strong and lack the sinews and fortitude required for the conditioning exercises of an athlete. I am thin and though I may be spry on occasion there is certainly nothing in my character to suggest that I would be particularly talented at anything but that which requires no serious movement. My arms and feet are large and my limbs spindly and it is a wonder I can so much as move through the hall without stumbling. When I was a young boy I was often prone to tripping over my own awkward feet, and as long as James and his posse were around I never got to live it down.

Wand Type: Black poplar, 12¼ inches, Runespoor Fang core.
Wand Expertise: Dueling and potioneering.
Patronus: Doe. Yes, really. And no, I will not explain.
Boggart: The corpse of Lily Paige Evans. I do not wish to elaborate on this.

Personality:

i

“Gosh, he’s so creepy. The way he stares at things. It’s like he’s obsessed or something.”
– Thought by Juliette Benoit, Hufflepuff Fourth year, December 11th, 1976.

There are benefits and there are losses to being a Legilimens, and, really, there are primarily losses. Such as this. While it can be remotely convenient to have access to a human brain at arm’s length, it can be a terrible inconvenience when their thoughts seemingly assault you unawares. Such as this particular case with one Juliette Benoit, last year. I was walking down the halls, minding my own business, and I happened to walk past her and all of the sudden her incessantly annoying, high-pitched thoughts seared into my mind and left me completely winded, both from the sudden onset and by the egregious lies of it. Really, am I obsessive? I doubt it. When I like things, yes, I do tend to become a little determined in attaining them, but obsessive? I do think the French girl was being a little bit too liberal with her phraseology, there. But no matter. The point is that I am not obsessive in the least – I cannot even begin to imagine why people think this. Mother thinks it, now this girl thinks it... it’s ludicrous, really. Where do they even get the idea? From my long study sessions at night? From my simple an logical adoration of potions? Look, I am not trying to completely undermine the merit of her thoughts, but really, Juliette? It’s no wonder you are failing potions. Such misconceptions as these cloud the mind and darken the brain, like a low-hanging fog, and certainly, it is to this tempest that you are victim. At any rate, I am not obsessive. My behavior toward things, both sentient or not, is totally normal, and it would take a fool to see anything other than that. Luckily for me, there is no shortage of fools attending Hogwarts; the Hufflepuffs are beginning to act as if foolishness is going out of style.


ii

“Oh my God, that kid is ridiculously smart. Way to make us all feel like losers.”
– Thought by an unnamed Ravenclaw student, January 12th, 1975.

Unlike the above instance, I am not going to waste my time refuting this natural truth. I am more intelligent than the general populace – this is true. Anyone who denies this is either a fool or a Hufflepuff. There is not much disputation over this matter, and, indeed, I graduated at the top of my class. Next to her, of course. I excel at all my studies, I am respected and even, I would say, revered by my professors. Many students, such as this one, were intimidated, I believe, by my intelligence, and this is the reason to which I ascribe my general lacking in the area of friendship. I am by no means a sociable person, and thus I suppose that that has also been a hindrance to my social repute, but the fact that my mind is so frightening, for lack of a better word, to other students, is the real reason for which I spend most of my nights alone. It is strange, is it not? How did one figure such as I even reach this high level of erudition? I cannot say for sure, though I know that as a byproduct of my overall loneliness I spent much of my free time in the library, reading up on various potions techniques and other books written about the nature of my Occlumency and Legilimency abilities. Through this way I learned much of what has today allowed me to harness them, and I can admit without blinking that no one has yet successfully been able to pierce my mind. Yes, I do believe that my forte lies in Occlumency, and I devote the greater part of my time to improving even further upon that particular half of my ability.


iii

“Dude, who the hell do you think you are? Think you’re better than the rest of us, arrogant sop.”
– Thought by Regulus Black, a Slytherin second year, April 2nd, 1972.

Now, really, I do believe that if any comment is totally, unbelievably wrong, it would be the above. I do not nor have I ever thought of myself as arrogant – indeed, I regard myself rather poorly, if you must know. It is strange enough that Regulus Black, a good friend of mine, even thought this. Granted, he and I were not exactly friends at the point that he did, but that does not change the fact that he and I are now on what I would term cordial relations. Regulus is a hot-headed boy with bigger ambition than he could possibly ever hope to manage, but I do believe that in some, very numbered, instances, he does mean well. In any event, I do not think that his claim to my arrogance as any merit. True, I do not believe in the supposed ‘ethical’ treatment of sentient, household pets that is currently sweeping the wizarding nation, but that does not make me arrogant. True, I believe Muggles and Muggleborns are subhuman, along with those intolerant Gryffindors, but that does not make me arrogant, either. In all frankness, I do not believe that any inch of my person is steeped in any shape or form of arrogance. Gryffindors are below par in everything they do, Hufflepuffs are far worse and seemingly have no redeeming qualities whatsoever about them, and Ravenclaws are only minutely tolerable. After a while, their scruples begin to bother me. The only true house worth being in is Slytherin, and while I believe that, it does not make me arrogant. I am a fairly simplistic human being, and I do admit to folly, but arrogance is not one of my vices.


iv

“Who is that guy? I’ve never seen him around before. Bit of a recluse, I guess.”
– Thought by Theodore Tonks, Ravenclaw fifth year, May 1st, 1975.

Tonks. I would not have expected you, a budding philosopher, to make such a horrible misjudgment on my character. Reclusive? Hardly. I am not some spider who lurks in the shadows and abhors all mankind – I beg to differ. As I said before, I merely find solace in books to be more gentle than that administered by humans, and is that such a fault? Being a Ravenclaw, I would suspect that you, Tonks, would understand this particular sentiment of mine. Apparently not. Tell me, Tonks, that you have not felt that way when confronted with a common room filled with partying lunatics, hexing themselves silly in a caffeine-induced stupor. Then, tell me that you have not tried to escape from this situation in the common room, only to turn to the Great Hall and find the same circumstances. Is it not perfectly logical, then, for me to admit to turning to books and the mercifully and consistently quiet recesses of the library? It is how I was able to survive Hogwarts. That, and the pleasure of landing Potter and his band of miscreants in detention. But by no means do I avoid people. Quite the contrary. Regulus Black, Lucius Malfoy, Rabastan Lestrange... all are certainly companions of mine and each one could attest to the fact that I indeed venture out into the jungle known as public life, at least once every two weeks, if not more. And, surely, that is a great sacrifice to my personal safety, is it not? Traipsing through the insanity of the public human lifestyle is a threat to the overall quality of my life, and thus it goes to show that I do suffer myself to go to town one day of my own accord, I can hardly be termed a recluse.


v

“Such a damned sarcastic bastard.”
– Thought by Priscilla Pryce, Slytherin fifth year, October 30th, 1976.

...My, my, Pryce, can we please tone down the language? What, has a Gryffindor gone and ignited your tongue? Anyway. Yes, I am a bit of a sarcastic bastard, I will admit to that. But this is not something that I feel should be frowned upon. Sarcasm is simply my gift to humankind, take it or leave it. I will not flatter myself with the supposition that everyone with whom I speak appreciates my rhetoric, but it must at least be said in my favor that my wit is constantly without restrictions of time or place. I am always armed with a barb – many can admit to that singular truth. I think of things easily and, unlike many of my peers, do not find myself incumbent under the same social inhibitions as they. I do not necessarily have a reputation to uphold, nor do I feel perturbed by the judgments of others. They can think what they will; it does not bother me. People are mindless fools who live their lives as submissive to society and I am not one of them. I am proud of this fact, and will continue to be so until the day I die. So, yes, Pryce, I may be prone to sarcasm, but I do not care so much about what you think or how you think it. If I were you, I would keep your judgments to yourself. Oh, wait... you were. Well, at least you thought you were, anyway.


vi

“He hasn’t got much going for him otherwise, but he’s pretty mature.”
– Thought by Alice Logan, Ravenclaw sixth year, January 29th, 1977.

Why, look at that. An underhanded compliment from the school’s little immigrant protege. I’m flattered. Yes, you are right. I have always considered myself on a tier of maturity at least two or three steps higher than that of my peers; my mother, my friends, and my instructors have all agreed on this fact. Do not ask me the how or why this is, for all I can tell you is that ever since I can remember I have not been phased by the pettiness or the immaturity of youth. Never have I been considered naive, and never have I been called foolish. It is something in which I pride myself, my maturity, and is the one thing about me that I view as consistent. When confronted with a difficult situation I am almost always able to address it with ease and with a fresh, mature approach. This is why I make an excellent disciplinarian – as a prefect, I was mature enough to rise above the trivial loyalties I had with my friends and turn them in when they needed turned in. No, I did not care that they refused to speak to me afterwards, and no, I did not mind the glares of betrayal. They were immature, and had they not been fooling around in the first place then such a fate would not have befallen them. I stand by my judgment.

vii

"I never could understand Severus' point of view on life. He saw things so different from me, never understanding how I could see good in so many things. I'm far from an optimist, so I don't think it would be a far cry to call him a cynic."
– Thought by Lily Evans, Gryffindor seventh year, February 14th, 1977.

Really, Lily? I cannot believe you would accuse me of such a thing. I am no cynic. Granted, I am not exactly what you would term an optimist but I really can hardly be called a cynic. Pessimism is indeed something in which I occasionally indulge, but how can you really hold that against me? I do not mean to invoke a ‘sob story,’ here, but given the facts of my past, it cannot be completely ruled out that I had my fair share of trials. So, if one were to examine my personal history and call me cynical, that would be a bit biased, do not you think? Pessimistic, maybe. But cynical is just slightly harsher than I would venture to admit. I just tend to see the glass half empty. Does that make me cynical? I look at the general populace of Hogwarts and I feel dismay and disgust. Does that make me cynical? I look at a woman and I feel nothing, except the desire for one that will never desire me. Does that make me cynical? I do not believe happiness exists. Does that make me cynical? The answer to all those questions is no, no, and no. In summation, it can hardly be said that I am a cynic when my ideology and thought processes follow the cynical philosophy in no way, shape, or form. It is egregiously wrong to think otherwise. I am merely the Devil’s advocate. Nothing more.

Likes:
+ Lily Paige Evans. (Refer to Chapters Four and Five)
+ Having been my retreat and safeguard in times of strife, potions will always remain some of my favorite things. (Refer to Chapter Five)
+ Seeing as potions are an undeniable interest of mine, it would only see, natural for me to hold some respect for the current Potions Master at Hogwarts, Professor Slughorn. (Refer to Chapter Five)
+ The best moments are those spent in silence. (Refer to Chapter Four)
+ ...Followed by those spent in solitude of both mind and person. (Refer to Chapter Four)
+ And when people do decide to pester me with inconsequential frivolities, I am not afraid to duel them. I am quite good at it, so I have been told. (Refer to Chapter Five)
+ Reading and books have always held great escapes for me. (Refer to Chapter Five)
+ Slytherin House is the only one worth anything in my mind. (Refer to Chapter four)
+ Even the greatest of wizards requires a mentor, and Professor Albus Dumbledore has for a long time been mine. (Refer to Chapter Four)
+ Being away from home always soothes the spirit, I believe. (Refer to Chapters Four and Five)
Dislikes:
– Lily Paige Evans. (Refer to Chapter Five)
– My father is the most repulsive and repugnant man on the face of this earth. (Refer to Chapters Two, Three, Four, and Five)
– Second only to my father, I find Muggles particularly disgusting. (Refer to Chapter Five)
– Having been taunted and tortured by James Potter & co., it is only natural for me to want revenge. (Refer to Chapter Five)
– My heritage; at least, on my father’s side. (Refer to Chapter Two)
– Having such an affinity for silence as I do, crowded places often bother me. (Refer to Chapter Four)
– I like the quiet atmosphere and solitude of a room with no people in it. (Refer to Chapters One, Two, Three, Four, and Five)
– Ravenclaws are tolerable but Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs make me gag. (Refer to Chapter Five)
– The opinions of others are usually not equal to my own and therefore not to be trusted. (Refer to Chapters Four and Five)
– Presumption is the downfall of most if not all. (Refer to Chapter Five)

History:

I have always found my personal history to be suited for what one might call Gothic literature – it has all the required elements and then some. Judge as you will.

When my mother was but a young brat of five her mother, my grandmother, began a period of her middle-aged life where she finally started to react to her husband’s neglect and passion for drinking. I have heard my mother, with mousy whispers, tell me in great detail that her mother often fell victim to nervous spasms when her husband was away, which was most of the time, and that her four daughters would help her to bed and sing around her convulsing body with joined hands, hoping to lull her into a pacifying slumber (if that doesn’t say ‘Gothic’ to you than I’m not quite sure what does). The four of them – Gertrude, Enid, Ruth, and my mother, Eileen – treated their own mother as if she were their responsibility, and it is through this early lifestyle that my mother began to mature. At five years old, she was shouldering the responsibilities of a twenty year old, and the obvious strain that such an action produced was evident in her every action. The girls continued to make excuses for their father, and continue to do so today, well into their middle- and old-age. I have heard first-hand a variety of naive explanations as to the behavior of my despicable grandfather, ranging from ‘he loved the open air and mummy couldn’t handle it’ to ‘he had too much on his mind and needed to get out.’ This man was simply caught between his passion for slacking and his duties to his family, and most often when caught having to decide betwixt them he chose the latter and would leave for hours on end, even days on end, before returning, utterly, senselessly drunk, to his anxious household. The girls, I have been told, would cluster around the front windows to the house and would stare for hours into the bleakness of the countryside, eyes straining for a glimpse of their absent father. The eldest of them, Gertrude, in particular, felt the sting of his absence, perhaps even more strongly than did her mother. It was she who lost the most sleep lingering at the door for him, hoping to hear it open, no matter the weather condition, no matter the time. And open it did, though not very frequently, and when it did open, the presence of the opener was not as congenial as anticipated. My grandfather was a brutish man of large, intimidating stature and glittering distinctions of nobility in the way he dressed, particularly in what he wore on his fingers. The Prince family crest often was sported, fashioned of pure gold to represent the Prince’s standing as a Pureblood family, however dwindling it had become, and it was that very ring that the girls most feared. I shall suffice myself to explain nothing other than that the ring was often tainted with blood, and leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Yet still, the girls, craven for attention from their father, strove to please him, and regardless of the fact that they knew what would happen when he did, they wanted him to come home. My mother has told me before that even in the coldest months of winter, their faces would be pressed against the glass of the frostbitten window. My grandmother was well aware of her husband’s behavior, but lacked the fortitude to do anything about it. She, too, had formulated her own excuses as to why her husband behaved the way he did, and, in her mind, his abuse of their children was justified. My mother and her surviving sisters believe that when their mother began to think this way is when she began her slow process of mental expiration, and that Ruth, the youngest daughter next to my mother, also began to slowly succumb to madness. In the same way that Gertrude loved her father, Ruth adored him, and this adoration grew only worse as she aged. She enjoyed the regular beatings because she was close to her father, and when he was away she threw violent tantrums which only served to feed her mother’s nervous disorder. Ruth would often sneak out of the house to search for her father, even during the winter, and thus had to be under constant watch by her elder sisters. Once, Ruth had managed to escape while her sisters were asleep. There was a blizzard outside and she strayed too far. They found her body three days after, when the snow had melted enough for them to leave the house. She was fourteen. Mother never recovered from that instance, for Ruth had been closest in age to her at the time and the two had shared a room. That, and she had been but seven at the time. My grandmother’s depression and anxiety only deepened after the death of her daughter, but she did not leave her husband. His unannounced absences became more prolonged, his returns more sporadic, and his abuse more acute. Gertrude and Enid, the two eldest, only had to suffer two years of this treatment before they turned seventeen and left the Prince manor forever, leaving my mother there, at the age of nine, with no such escape. With her ailing mother constantly requiring her attention and with her horrid father abandoning her and returning solely to beat her, my mother informed me that there were many times she considered ‘going out to find Ruthie too,’ the meaning of which you might guess. All the while, my grandmother’s health continued to dwindle; she was constantly bedridden and underwent delusions of grandeur. My mother told me that often she would repeat her marriage vows in her sleep, and when she wasn’t experiencing painful spasms of nervousness (the likes of which now had to be dealt with solely by my mother, who would climb atop her mother and hug her arms around her, easing her violent rocking), she was seemingly stuck reliving her marriage all day. This was an excruciating thing for my mother to hear, for she had begun to hate her father and could not stand to hear her mother’s blind praises of him.

Mercifully, however, my mother received an invitation to Hogwarts upon the solemn occasion of her eleventh birthday, which she celebrated alone in the dusty kitchen with the indigenous mice, forgotten by her mother, her sisters, and her father. She awaited the day that she could leave the Prince manor longingly, though she worried for her mother’s safety upon her departure. Unfortunately, her worries were eased by the passing of her mother a month and a half before my mother left for Hogwarts. At eleven years of age, my mother did not know what to do, so she waited for her father to return from his most recent escapade. And return he did, three days after his wife’s death. When he arrived, my mother informed him of this news. He solemnly buried his wife in the private family graveyard and, when he came back into the house, dealt my mother the harshest beating she had ever experienced. When she boarded the train for Hogwarts, she had fresh bruises scattered all over her body, and only some of them could be obscured by her robes.

To this day, each of the sisters says their father was a ‘happy’ drunk. Mother maintains the theory that if she had been a better daughter, her father would not have had to drink.

With such a pleasant first appearance to her classmates, it was no surprise that my mother suffered many stares and, from the more forward students, scrutinizing queries. A few of them clustered around her, staring blatantly at her bruises and scars and demanding to know from where they had come. They had all been raised in homes where fathers and mothers loved each other, where siblings did not desert each other, and where love was not extinguished. Thus, they did not understand my mother’s ashamed insistence that it was her father who had inflicted the wounds upon her, and pressed her constantly to find what they thought would be the ‘right’ answer to their already invasive question. My mother did not fare well under all the attention and ended up hexing half of the students, being rewarded with a detention her first day at Hogwarts. She was sorted into Slytherin and then directly after the feast, during which everyone scooted away from her, she was escorted to her dormitory to unpack and then to promptly retire to Professor McGonagall’s office afterwards. She was assigned the task of scrubbing the lavatory floors, after she first apologized to the students who had been harassing her. It was on this note that my mother was introduced to her new life, as a friendless, hopeless, and miserable pariah. The other girls in her dormitory would often play hurtful pranks on her, such as hexing her bedclothes at night and turning them into stone so that she couldn’t get out of bed to go to classes, and by struggling underneath the weight of the stone she would scratch her skin rather pitifully and would have to explain ashamedly to her teachers that she had done it to herself, lest the other girls increase the severity of their tricks. Utterly blinded by this display of abuse, the professors at Hogwarts often viewed my mother as a nuisance and an attention-monger, though she was most decidedly neither, if you ask me. She had joined no extra-curriculars as of yet and had seemingly put no effort into striking up friendships; McGonagall was particularly disturbed by this fact and decided that, since my mother was now entering her fourth year, it was time for her to be forced into socializing. Little did McGonagall know that that was equivalent to a death sentence for my already marked mother. She was placed in the relatively unknown Gobstones club with teammates from various years, and each in turn enjoyed picking on her. My mother, however small a triumph it had been, was the best of the players on the team, and despite the way they teased and taunted they couldn’t afford to lose her. Mother informed me that this was the first time she’d ever felt wanted in her whole life. Upon the end of the year, the current Gobstones captain graduated, vacating the position for possible contenders. Though none of them deigned to admit it, my mother was the obvious choice and, as a fifth year, was named captain of the Hogwarts Gobstones team. She would remain so until her graduation.

Though the team never actually made it to the regional competitions (due in part, my mother insists, to the below par playing of her teammates), my mother still viewed this particular instance as a great success. In fact, having a position of power did influence her reputation at the school, and while she was by no means accepted by anyone, she at least had the honor of knowing that people didn’t scoot away when she sat at the Slytherin table anymore. And, sometimes, someone would look at her without searching eyes. It was those moments that she found herself living for, and, though she did remain friendless even after her seventh year, my mother felt some private joy in knowing that somewhere she was wanted. I personally think it is a most degrading way of being ‘wanted’ – if it can be called that – but I hold no sway in past events. After my mother graduated, though, she returned to the dilapidated Prince manor with no real direction in life. There was no more structure, no more company, and no more reason to be wanted. It is for this reason that my mother did the most abominable thing imaginable; she went to Muggle London and ascertained a job. She told me that the Muggles perhaps would give her a different taste of life, and that she really had nothing better to do with her time (which I fully disagree with). I suppose, in her defense, the Prince household was a place of less than happy memories for her and being there all day was not good for her emotional state. So she left, wandering into the uncharted urban territory of London and finding a clerical job in a finance office for the local textile mill. The Muggles accepted her, according to my mother, but they were wary of her appearance and judged her based upon it, just as many do with me many other Princes. It seems as though such a petty society dominates the lives of those less-endowed with good looks, and it is to this society that my mother became a slave. Being an underdog in regard to appearance, my mother was not well liked or accepted, despite of her many merits. She was often the butt of many cruel jokes and suffered the degradation of many insulting notes left on her desk by petty and self-absorbed employees. There was one man, though, who worked in the textile mill, who visited the office every night to log the hours he had put in working that day. His name was Tobias Snape. I suppose the ending of this story does not require much elaboration on my part, but I shall suffice myself to say that Tobias was a keen seducer and my mother was easily flattered. I still can not begin to fathom why Tobias was interested in my mother, save that he knew it would be easy to get what he wanted from a woman with such low self-esteem. At any rate, my mother, desperate for attention, ended up marrying Tobias, and they moved into his home in Spinner’s End not a year after they had met.

The early years of marriage could have been described as mildly pleasant. Mother continued her secretarial position at the textile company and father continued his work in the factory. The house was small; two bedrooms, a single bath, a living room, and a kitchen were its only rooms, and all of them were not spacious in the least nor were they comfortable. Yet both survived, and at the time, mother believed that with each other they could accomplish anything. Father, of course, did not exactly share this naive sentiment of mother’s, preferring instead to complain at every opportunity he got about how miserable he was living in the cramped house and how disgusting was its condition. Mother didn’t seem to mind, as having grown up in the Prince household conditioned her to be almost immune to dirt and grime. She hardly cleaned, and when she did it was because father had insisted upon it. You see, father had an extremist opinion toward cleanliness; he was obsessed with remaining clean constantly and would often bathe twice or thrice a day despite the condition of his chronic dry skin. Mother was slightly more inclined to the more natural way of things, bathing every other day. Father couldn’t stand this in the least, and often was very vocal in his dislike of her bathing habits. He roughly encouraged her to be more cleanly, at least around him, and to keep the house in better shape. Mother eventually acquiesced, though begrudgingly, and strove to keep the house in better shape so as to please her husband. It should be noted, though, that father never once tried to please mother like she tried to please him. About half a year into their marriage, my mother received a notification of her father’s death from her elder sister, Gertrude. The funeral time and place were listed, and though she had serious drawbacks about it, mother and father attended. It had been the first time she had seen either sister (for Enid was in attendance as well) in twelve years. The funeral was brief and agonizing at the same time, for though it was joyous for the sisters to be reunited, it was also painful for them to relive the bitter memories such a reunion regurgitated. The Prince manor was left to Gertrude, being the eldest, the family fortune was left to Enid, being the second eldest, and the ring, the cursed adornment that was the bane of her existence, was left to my mother. After the funeral, the three sisters and father convened at the Prince manor, where they divulged the events of the past twelve years. Gertrude had taken up a small position in the Ministry, working as a secretary for a Muggleborn rights activist. She and this activist, Honoria Briggs, were said to be unnaturally close. Gertrude never married. Enid, on the other hand, simply married into a lower born Pureblood family, the Bingblotts, yet had never mothered any children as a result of a uterine deficiency she had inherited from father’s side of the family. My mother recounted her journey through Hogwarts and removal into the Mudblood world, and though her sisters were disappointed in her, their disappointment was nothing in comparison to that of my father’s.

Father, prior to the funeral, had not known about mother’s ability to harness and use magic. Gertrude had mentioned something in passing about it as she was levitating a tray of crumpets to the table, and my father, so taken aback by the sudden and unexpected use of magic, fainted upon eye contact with the hovering dishware. When he came to, he began to vehemently demand explanation for the events that had transpired, and when he was given both the truth and the proof to back it up, he left the manor in a fit of passion and would not speak or look at my mother for an entire week following. He had the divorce papers ready to file when she informed him that she was pregnant. She had done so out of desperation, and he had filed away the papers and remained home out of necessity. The next nine months, mother once informed me, were hell on earth. Father constantly mistreated her and it soon became clear that whatever shred of love and respect he had for her before was gone. He was terribly intimidated by mother, and her ability to perform magic threatened his feeling of dominance. This was a sign of weakness in his character, among his many weaknesses, and I only wish my mother had been strong enough to do something about it. But she, too, was weak; perhaps weaker than my father, and there was nothing to be done about the situation, despite the fact that she recognized there was a problem. She just sat and took the beatings, without thinking that perhaps they had been a danger to me, still within the stages of fetal development. But mother did not usually think about me before herself. It must have reminded her of her father in some regard, but even if it did, she received it welcomely. She did not want my father to desert her, and it was through that emotion that she allowed the beatings, and perhaps even enjoyed them. Father never beat her enough to kill her; his main purpose in doing what he did was to show her that he was dominant even if she could wield a wand against him. He wanted her to know that she was not more powerful than him; he wanted her to know that he was not afraid of her. But in reality, she was his greatest fear. In reality, he knew he was not stronger than her. And it was in his knowledge of this that he found the courage to torture her on almost a daily basis. He would kick, hit, scream, throw, tear... anything he could do. Through this, he caused a premature birth. Into this world of turmoil and despair was I born, a month before my time.

January the ninth, 1959*, mother was taken to the local Muggle hospital by my seemingly apathetic father, and a few hours after their arrival I was born. Even then I weighed little, and the physicians and midwives feared I would not live much longer after my birth. But I somehow survived, and a week later was released to Spinner’s End. Mother had prepared a small, shabby nursery for me and while she attended to me every night, father would either sleep or leave the house to wander the streets. He hated the sound of my crying. Mother, on the other hand, would sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag, and at my every peep she would awake and soothe me. For the first few days of my life in Spinner’s End, mother had not named me, merely because she had wanted her husband to have the honor of naming his son. But father was not interested in me in the least, and after calling me ‘son’ and ‘baby’ for three days, mother took matters into her own hands and began calling me ‘Severus’ after one of her paternal uncles. My middle name then came from my father’s name, and thus I was given the full name Severus Tobias Snape. I do not applaud my mother for originality. But she was pleased with my name and aunts Gertrude and Enid were as well, so that was the end of it. Both my aunts visited quite frequently to keep my mother company while my father was away or at work, and that seemed to bring small joy to my mother’s life. I, however, was often left alone while the three of them chatted in the living room, and this is when the pattern of neglect began. Yes, I was a neglected child, wipe that shocked look off your face before I am tempted to hit you. What else did you expect, given my situation? At any rate, it is in this fashion that I grew up: fatherless, often motherless, and alone. By the time I reached five years old, however, I was no longer fatherless. My father had commenced his beatings of my mother once more, and for that to take place he lingered in the house longer than he had before, and not even Gertrude’s or Enid’s visits could spare my mother from his drunken wrath. He also began interaction with me, shouting insults at me as he would throw me into the bathtub and scrub me down from head to toe with a hard hunk of pumice. My skin would be torn and scratched so miserably afterward that mother would have to apply foul-smelling lotion to it to soothe the pain. But father was obsessive when it came to hygiene, and it became a small, immature joy of mine to put off bathing as long as possible just to annoy him. This resulted in worse skin conditions post-bathing, but it was worth it. Mother often scolded me for behaving this way, but I could tell that she, too, derived some small pleasure from father’s displeasure. So, it worked out for the both of us. Father never wanted to buy me clean clothing, though, despite his obsession with clean bodies, and so I was only given his cast offs that had been destroyed in factory work. Ripped sweaters and pants, rough cotton and linens were all I knew. Mother had to take in the clothes to the best of her ability but everything still hung unattractively on my limp frame, and the children on my block often made fun of me for looking like a homeless boy. Which, in all fairness to them, I did. But neither my mother nor my father cared.

Most days, I was left to my own devices. Mother didn’t care either way if I came or went and father hardly even knew my name let alone cared for my whereabouts. I wandered up and down the dilapidated streets and sometimes played in the polluted river nearby, catching cans and papers with sticks. It was through this that I learned I could employ the use of magic to fetch floating trash from the oil-tinged creek; levitation became my favorite method. Soon, mother found out that I could practice magic, and she advised me to keep that fact hidden from my father. But within a matter of weeks he caught me levitating one of my books in my room, and I was sure in that moment that my life was over. Yet while my life was spared, my body was not. I spent the next several hours trying to defend myself from his advances, but I was not skilled in combat yet and, what was more, I did not have a wand. So, I suffered from his blows, and it was all my mother could do to wake me up in the morning. My face was so swollen I could barely open my eyes, and she had to douse me in blisteringly cold water in order to ascertain that I was still living. And living I was, if only barely. Father had left the house and had yet to return, all the while complaining about how I, too, was blighted by the curse of witchery. When he returned, he beat me again, and again, and again, and all the while, he cursed me and my mother for our abilities. Unlike mother, I fought back, but that only seemed to worsen the beatings. Father only did this for a week, though, at least with me; upon the dawn of the first day he’d failed to beat me, he resumed his regular beatings of my mother, choosing to blame her for my magical capabilities. It was around this time that she began sleeping in my room with me. We would bar the door and sit in my bed, and she would tell me stories of Hogwarts to soothe me as father pounded on the door and screamed obscenities about us. Then, when he was away all day at work, we would sneak food into my room and quickly lock the door again before he returned. Such was our life – one of poverty, one of fear, one of hiding. One which I vowed to myself, at the age of eight, I would never live again. But it would be a long while before that declaration came into fruition, and at that time I had to satiate myself with the knowledge that hopefully, one day, I could attend Hogwarts and at least have temporary asylum from Spinner’s End. She told me of Slytherin house, of its past and its traditions, and soon I became quite enamored with the idea of being Sorted there. The only trouble was if I could actually get there with father’s approval, which I certainly could not. Mother had tried to discern myriad ways in which I could attend Hogwarts, but she could not even stand being in the same room as my father let alone actually having a conversation with him about the thing he despised above all else in the world. So, this meant that my prospects for going to Hogwarts were grim, and I took to solace in the woods again when father was at work, for, as dramatic as this sounds, they were the only comfort I had. Mother made me feel worse because she continued telling me stories about a place which I would never be able to visit and of course father wasn’t better, so being alone was the best option. I wandered farther, though, usually several blocks from my home, and it was about a twenty minute walk away from my residence to hers.

Hers. Lily Evans’. Even now, as I write, the pain elicited from that name is beyond human imagination. As I do not intend for this manuscript to be read by anyone but myself, I shall divulge the full extent of this agony – at least, given what words from the English language with which to work, I will attempt a description.

Having egressed from the dilapidated end apartment in east Spinner’s End, I did not expect to find much beyond what peppered the lawns of my house and neighborhood. The tepid creek, so close to my home it was visible from my bedroom window, burbled and chortled as it swallowed up fragments of the industrial park to its right and its fetid smell began to permeate throughout the entire neighborhood. The brunt of this inconvenience was felt most acutely at my residence; moreover, it was felt most acutely through my bedroom, as it was the closest room in the house to the creek. As mother and I had taken up daily refuge in that room, the smell was bordering dangerously on intolerable, and oftentimes we had to leave our constant vigil and retreat to small the living room in order to provide our lungs with some sort of relief, however fleeting. But I soon tired of this and took to leaving the house and traveling to west Spinner’s End, which was a slightly less dilapidated area and which had not suffered the foul odor of the polluted creek. It was in this neighborhood of west Spinner’s End that I encountered the bane and sustenance of my existence – the salve and the poison to my being. Lily Paige Evans. She disgusts me, and yet she fascinates me. I abhor everything for which she stands, and yet she is the reason for which I stand. In short, I hate her. In short, I love her. At any rate, she lived twenty minutes from my home, with her putrid chit of a sister and her unsettlingly kind parents. I happened upon her showing her sister her newfound ability to unfold and refold the petals of a small flower, and upon the discovery that someone else in my neighborhood could practice magic I stepped onto her lawn and explained to her what she had done, ignoring the brattish protests of her sister. I did not care so much for the rest of her family; no, it was only her. It had always been only her. She did not know anything at that time about magic or Hogwarts, and so I took it upon myself to parrot back to her all the tales that my mother had told me of Hogwarts, and in so doing inspired her to look forward to her letter as much as I was looking forward to mine. We would play at childish games in her lawn every day, from dawn until dusk (much to the chagrin of her pathetic sister), and would discuss our plans for school once we got there. I expressed to her my concern about my potential inability to attend, and she argued that I should go anyway, even if my father did not want me to do so. She is in part the reason why I was in fact able to board the train that fall – she inspired within me such confidence against my father that I scarcely knew I had. The night I received my letter, I devised a plan with my mother to convince father to allow me to go, in response to Lily’s counsel. When he returned from work I first tried a diplomatic approach and showed him the letter, simply requesting permission; which, of course, he refused. A refusal that was accompanied by a swift blow to the jaw for ‘presumption,’ or so he termed it. Then, with the assistance of my mother’s wand, I got him to change his mind. A wand had never been used against him before, and being a Muggle, father did not know how it behaved in the hands of a wizard. But he was a coward, and he did not want to find out, and thus within a few weeks mother and I scrounged for inexpensive supplies, but only ones that she did not already have. She gave me her cauldron, her books, and a myriad other things. We fetched some robes from Madam Malkin’s and next to a wand those were the only new supplies I received for school. I boarded the train with Lily, and we were joined by a group of two Gryffindor boys. James Potter and Sirius Black.

I do not wish to further discuss this encounter except to explain that it was the catalyst for my discovering my ability as an Occlumens and Legilimens (I had known for some time that I could peer into the mind of my mother, and that I was also particularly skilled at concealing my emotional front, but this incident gave reason behind it once I recognized in the context of a book what exactly I had done). I shall suffice myself to say that I thought Lily was beautiful, and I was not the only person in that compartment who thought the same. Lurid thoughts were running through the mind of the Potter boy, lurid for an eleven year old, as it were, and that was enough to ignite the antipathy for he and his friend that I had for the duration of my years at Hogwarts. Lily did not seem to particularly care for them either, which abated my initial anger, but the teasing of the boys was enough to rekindle it. They believed Slytherin house was less than desirable, praising Gryffindor like the fools that they were. They called me Snivellus and tried to trip me as Lily and I went to find a different compartment. But that was only the beginning of my confrontations with the two boys, and soon, it would be more than just two of them who tortured me. Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew soon joined their ranks, and I began to fear for their influence over Lily. Thankfully, I had been sorted into Slytherin, though my joy was not as it should have been. In fact, joy was not what I felt upon learning I had been sorted into Slytherin. Why, one might ask, would I not be thankful for such a gift as that, to be within the same house as my mother, to finally live out the plans I had made for my schooling, to be surrounded by intelligent students, to be living out a dream? Lily had been sorted into Gryffindor. With that, the dream was shattered. James Potter and Sirius Black both had been sorted into Gryffindor as well, and Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew had followed not long after. It seemed as though everyone who had remote interest in Lily – who was, really, growing to be quite popular with both sexes – was in Gryffindor, while I, the only one who truly cared for her, was in Slytherin. I did not resent that. I did not wish to be in Gryffindor. But I did not wish to be apart from her, either. She seemed totally unperturbed by the events, however, and soon enough we merely adapted our friendship to the school. She made friends in Gryffindor and I in Slytherin, and this lasted until our fifth year. I became interested in the Dark Arts around this time, courtesy of one Bellatrix Black, and Lily began to perceive this change in me. She confronted me about it and it was the source of many arguments – though the insults were not one-sided. I had often disliked her choice of friends, and, much to my dismay, she began fraternizing with none other than James Potter and his posse of miscreants, the likes of which I had encountered rather unfavorably in the Shrieking Shack earlier in my fifth year when I was nearly mauled to death by a raving werewolf otherwise known as Remus Lupin. But that is beside the point. I do not wish to discuss my final conversation with Lily. All I shall say is that I was being harassed by Potter and his friends and I said some things of which I am not proud, and that cost me her friendship. After this I became Prefect and in her seventh year, she became Head Girl, alongside her new significant other, Potter. During my seventh year I moved in to the Prince manor with Gertrude, as my situation with mother and father had become unbearable and mother insisted I leave. I remained at the Prince manor until I graduated last year, and I remain there now. I have been initiated into the service of the Dark Lord and Lily is now all but a memory.

I have chosen my path and she has chosen hers. May the Dark Lord have mercy on us both.

**Kay, so, since ISS’s timeline is a bit whacky, I just wanted to let everyone know that actually Severus is still seventeen (as should half the Marauders be) because he was born in 1960, but for the sake of my sanity and the sake of the site’s sanity, he is henceforth eighteen and born in 1959. XD Kthnx.

Sample Post: Preeeetty please refer to posts made by Alice Logan, Regulus Black, Juliette Benoit, and Priscilla Pryce? :3

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{ C O N T R A C T }

I solemnly swear that I, Fief, have read the rules, understand clearly what my responsibilities are now that I am joining ISS, and will abide by these standards set by the staff.

[Lily Evans]

ACCEPTED OF COURSE!