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Chapter 6: The Prince's regrets

Severus looked away from his book when he had the distinct sensation of being watched. It was Lily. She had spent the afternoon prostrate in a corner with her cat on her knees. Only the purrs of the hairy bug had disturbed the near silence in the living room. Severus never liked cats, or even dogs, for that matter. He didn't understand how people could get attached to these little animals. He had no pets, not even an owl for his mail. He didn't hate animals as a rule, and would never have fun hurting them, but giving affection to a stupid feline was beyond him. He didn't know why he grabbed the cat by the neck in the Potter's kitchen. He had thought that it would perhaps please Lily to find her cat, failing to have her husband alive. At least the animal wasn't bothering him too much. We had to admit that cats were much more independent than dogs, and slightly smarter. The latter had perhaps guessed that it wasn't in his interest to needle him too much.

For four days, he has been secretly hosting Lily Potter, her son and incidentally the cat. He had promised Lily that he would protect her son, an unfortunate target of a prophecy that Severus had the foolishness to repeat to his Dark Lord. The child was destined to defeat the dark wizard, and the Dark Lord had found it wise to eliminate his great rival from the crib. The new spy would have lied if he had said he had felt scruples when he learned that the son of this arrogant James Potter, one of his intimate enemies, had been appointed to die by his master. He had always hated James Potter from their first encounter in the Hogwarts Express.

At the time, he was just an eleven-year-old kid, like him, sweating all his pores of smugness and pride. He immediately saw that he had grown up in a privileged, and certainly loving family. The eleven-year-old was clean on him, and had everything from a pampered child, spoiled to the core. This was one of the first reasons he hated him. Then because that jerk dared to criticize Slytherin in front of Lily, and then to advertise Gryffindor – that stupid house. Severus, who had a tongue as well hung as a snake, had taken the bait. At the school of St Melchior, he had often been targeted by muscles, boys from the same background as him, sons of workers, blue collars.

At Cokeworth, Severus had always endured the blows, those of his father, then those of the boys of his age. He had always known violence, but he had never been very good at defending himself with his thin arms and angular knees. He understood that words could save him. The words were powerful, and they could inflict terrible suffering, especially since he was a wizard. Accidental magic had sometimes saved him from bad steps in the playground. He was happy to see that the football, which Steeve Miller had thrown to crush his nose, had missed him. He had returned, without even touching it, to the sender, like a boomerang. Steeve Miller then had his own broken nose, and Severus got away with nothing. Of course, Steeve Miller and his crew rushed to the principal's office, and Severus was punished, even though the ball hadn't even touched him.

Words to St Melchior hadn't saved him much. There, the scum didn't understand the subtlety, and it hated above all that a scoundrel, like Severus, amused himself to ridicule it. He mistakenly believed that there would be intelligent children like him at Hogwarts. He knew from his mother what the other houses were. She had been dispatched to Slytherin and told him that it was the best house without dwelling on the details. Gryffindor was, according to her, a lair of headlong pursuers, Ravenclaw a nest of pseudo-intellectuals and Hufflepuff a burrow of simpletons.

Lily, the only friend he ever had, was smart like him. But the little redhead, whom he had spoken to for the first time on the playground, was better than him humanly, much nicer. She had begun to fascinate him long before he spoke to her. He understood that she was a witch when she participated in the game of apples in a water bowl during St Melchior's Halloween party, Apple bobbing. Severus didn't participate, and he could very well have taken advantage of the banal afternoon to skip school, but that day there was a dirty weather outside. He was nine, and he saw Lily win the game in record time. No sooner had she leaned over the basin than the apple, which she had looked at, had been drawn to her mouth and Lily had won, without being splashed by the icy water. For months, he had spied on her, followed her, and witnessed her manifestations of accidental magic. He had discovered that Lily had an older sister, Petunia. A tall blonde who looked like a pimp and who was unpleasant at best. In her he had detected nothing magical, and so had their parents, the Muggles living on the other side of the creek.