IN ANOTHER LIFE (James Potter x Severus Snape)

Chapter 10 - Busy Days and Second Year

Amidst the overgrown and unattended garden of the Snape family home, a figure cloaked in concentration and the fading golden light of summer practiced in solitude. Serena Snape had returned from her first year at Hogwarts with more questions than answers, her mind a whirlwind of theories and possibilities.

Her parents believed their daughter to be sequestered in her room, diligently preparing for her second year. Little did they know, Serena spent her days away from prying eyes, deep in the wild corners of the park, exploring the depths of her magical core.

Her fingers glided over the bark of an Old tree, closing her eyes as she focused her emotions towards the tree, her innate healing magic. The roughened scars on the bark seemed to soften, knitting together as if time itself was being reversed. The Healing Touch was not just a gift; it was an art form, and Serena was its devoted student.

During the quiet nights, she pondered her existence, the strange and inexplicable fusion of Severus Snape's dying soul with that of a first-year Omega girl named Serena. She questioned if her omegan magic, 'Early Manifestation', had reached across the boundaries of life and death, universes and destinies, to intertwine their souls? The theory seemed the most plausible, given one of the early manifestations of Omegan magic was 'empathic connections', but it left her restless for concrete answers. She didn't like being in the dark of things.

She had no mentor in this world to guide her—no Dumbledore, no experienced Omega (one who transmigrated and regressed like her) to consult. Serena was charting her own course, using the vast expanse of knowledge from her past life to hone her abilities, to become both shield and sword should the need arise.

As the days slipped by, Serena's thoughts often wandered to the changes she had enacted, the ripples she had caused in the fabric of this world. Every kindness shown, every friendship forged, every spell cast in this parallel existence could alter the future in ways she couldn't predict.

And that was what fueled her quiet determination under the canopy of stars, what drove her to master her Omegan magic, to become stronger, wiser, more prepared. She couldn't afford the luxury of ignorance, not when the stakes could be so high.

Serena knew she had to be ready for anything, for every possibility that lay ahead. So, in the secret hours of her first summer back from Hogwarts, she trained and she studied. With each day that passed, she became more than just a survivor of her past; she became a shape of her future, a guardian of her new life as Serena.

~~~

The Great Hall was filled with the usual excitement and chatter as the Hogwarts students waited for the Sorting Ceremony to begin. Serena Snape sat with her friends, including Lucius Malfoy and Evelyn Sallow, in the Slytherin section. Her mind drifted back to the scene that had happened on the Hogwarts Express earlier that day.

Sirius Black had been visibly surprised upon seeing Lucius sharing a compartment with her, Lily, and Evelyn. The shock on his face had been almost comical, and Serena found herself suppressing a smirk. She knew the Marauders were aware of her closeness with Lucius, but she also knew they never understood it. They always assumed Lucius was the same as other Slytherins—haughty and obsessed with blood purity. But they were wrong. Not this Lucius.

A memory flashed through Serena's mind, a memory from her first year. She had been in a Potions class with the Marauders, brewing a Pepperup potion when James and Sirius had approached her. They had warned her about Lucius, with Sirius being the most vocal about his concerns. He told her that he had asked Lucius about his beliefs when they were younger, asserting with certainty that Lucius was a pure-blood supremacist.