Lucy Snape and the Tale of the Knights (Book One)

7: Harry Potter

Chapter 7: Harry Potter

On the other end of the train a frustrated Snape paced in his own personal compartment. She'll be here, she got her letter, she'll be here, he kept telling himself.  Yet he couldn't help but dread Lucy had missed the train for failure of not finding the platform, King's Cross even.

She'll be fine, if she's not here I'll leave Hogwarts for a little while and go and find her. Snape was determined to meet Lucy again but was he ready to be a parent? He didn't even know she'd left his house in the summer holidays he was that careless. Or was Lucy too smart for him? Or maybe she didn't feel at home with him.

Maybe he was a careless parent.

But he'd never been really good at anything but defense against the dark arts, potions and a few other things. How could he possibly take a child into his care when he hardly knew anything about parenting. Also he hated children, that was clear.

Why should he care? He was only taking her in so she could get to Hogwarts. He remembered the letter he'd written to Cokeworth orphanage...guilt pervaded him.

He was about to reach for his wine glass to numb his pain when he realised it was empty. He muttered an insult to himself, stood up and exited his compartment. He headed down the corridor and into the teachers bar where Professor McGonagall was sitting with Professor Sprout. He wanted to make himself unnoticed but he knew this wouldn't be the case with the Transfiguration and Herbology teachers.

"Hello, Severus," Professor Sprout smiled and she took another sip of her drink, no doubt consuming as much free time as possible before the inevitable duty of shepherding children around began again.

"Professor," Snape muttered as he made a grab for some wine.

"You seem troubled, are you alright?" McGonagall asked. Snape wished McGonagall would stop treating him as though he was still at Hogwarts as she had taught Transfiguration even when he was at school.

"Fine," he poured some wine into his glass and then returned the bottle before making a hasty dash back to his compartment, hoping he didn't spill any of the contents.

When he returned back to his compartment he slammed the door behind him, he gulped down the whole glass hoping that he'd get drunk and forget everything about the girl with the brunette hair.

* * *

When the train stopped all the first years seemed gingerly stepped off of the train with all the other years. They were unsure of themselves when a figure came ambling towards them. Lucy had been come up with at least a dozen scenarios in her head while she spoke timidly to Shona on the train of Snape swooping down and grabbing her when she got off of the train. Some involved him telling her off verbally, some physically. So she was glad to see a giant with a kind face unlike so many others who advanced back. One small boy with black hair, glasses was fearless of the man and greeted him like an old friend.

While Shona and Lucy had been considering buying some sweets from the trolley they'd seen the very same boy come past their compartment with a red haired boy, Lucy was sure it was one of the boys she'd seen earlier. Shona had gasped and Lucy had turned worriedly to the boy with the jet black hair as he sauntered by.

"It's Harry Potter!" Shona had said.

"Have you met him already?" Lucy wondered curiously.

"Met him? I don't need to meet him."

"So he's popular."