Raven is a Snake

The Younger Years (Pre-Hogwarts)

Raven didn't have a bad childhood, in fact she had a good one before Hogwarts started. She was just a baby when her mother gave her, regretfully but with trust, to her father. Severus Snape, he was slow to warm up to the new task he had been given. The barely there red hair starting to grow on the small child's head and the green eyes that stared up at him, while they were darker then her mother's, made him gave into gentle memory's of his own childhood. The memories of the family that helped him and kept him alive, together, calm when his mother couldn't. He held the child close as he stood in the small, cold house. It was then he'd decided he needed to fix this old house, full of bad memories. He had to make sure it was safe and so that his little girl, Raven her mother had decided, to have better memories then he did.

His Little girl, Raven Lily Snape, quickly made herself a small home in his heart and home. As he went to Hogwarts for his first year of teaching he had explained himself to McGonagall first, she was the one staff member she trusted - had done when he was student and continued to now - and then to Dumbledore and they were there to help. More so McGonagall, Dumbledore seemed more hesitate around the child to young to even walk. Raven was a calm, quiet child and she seemed to radiate joy and happiness. McGonagall seemed to love the child more so when " Aunty Minnie!" Started being uttered by the child at a young age as quick as " Dada."

When she was around five she had been playing to with her dad's hair as they sat and he marked students homework. " Daddy, why isn't my hair like yours? " she's asked innocently enough and he turned to her to speak and stopped as he watched her pretty red hair darken to match his and he took a moment, " It seems... That you fixed that my little snake." He'd told her in a careful voice, shock stopping his original words. This had been her first big show of magic, and he was rather proud, if only she'd not lost her lovely red for his dull black hair. "Shall we go Show McGonagall?" He asked moving to pick her up easily as she grinned pulling hair in front of her eyes, with a hand that hadn't moved to hold his shoulder,  admiring her newly coloured hair proudly comparing it in colour to her father's happily " To Aunt Minnie! " She happily called with a small motion in the correct direction before going back to comparing their hair with joy. At that point McGonagall had decided to reach her small spells that connected to the accidental magic she showed. So she learned small cosmetic spells that she could use to make her hair look different, or her eyes and other small things Raven had found with the books she'd been given.  Dumbledore also seemed to take this as permission to start teaching the small girl small, harmless and fun charms. A few years later (at about age eight) she started playing with the spells and charms she'd learned already and developing them herself. She wanted to do the same with potions but her dad wouldn't let her in the lab without him and said she could start doing that once she's finished her third year of hogwarts at least. She rolled her eyes but agreed with what her father had said and he had showed her books of potions gone wrong and how badly they had hurt those who had messed up, even the simplest potions could go badly wrong, she had thrown up at one point which is where they stopped. It was only to get his point across, he didn't mean to make her to react as such but either way it worked and he wouldn't fully apologise for explaining his point and making sure to keep her safe.

She started sneaking around the halls around the same time it was fun, and she found that first years lost things rather often and the portraits helped her from time to time to find things on her adventures. She after the first three weeks of doing this had four Gryffindor ties, two Hufflepuff ties and one of each of the last two houses and many other small trinkets. Though she left things like books, homework and things that were obviously precious to the owner outside the entrance of the houses that the student came from, She could again thank the portraits for helping her find the four entrances. Not that they would admit to any professor or she would either for that matter.

She has been caught a few times by prefect's or other teachers, and thanked her aunt for teaching her those spells as much as her dad hated them. She did get grounded once or twice over sneaking out and around the castle at night. She was scolded and informed that the first years are older and they don't get to do that either. She returned that she was more mature then most of the first years. Severus had thanked Merlin he could hide the smile of amusement that wanted to show because she wasn't exactly wrong, but he wouldn't tell her that when she was in trouble. So she got reprimanded and was grounded. She always kept quiet till she got to her room and added her newest found trophy(s) to her draw of things, something she prays her father would never find.

She loved her childhood, mostly. There's time she was sad, as all children are. And there's a small memory of a lady with red hair and a man with tawny hair and scars talking to her and giving her a small wolf plushy 'Mini Moony' she'd always called him. She'd mentioned it to her father once and he told her it was her mother and, unfortunately, her godfather (her mother had given her a godfather before he'd had a choice in the fact apparently) she'd always wondered why she never saw him again. She never wondered over her mother as much, not after she been taken to her mam's grave. She'd cried as her father had held her and told her story's of her mother till she'd calmed down again, even including begrudgingly story of Potter and the "Marauder's" more fun pranks to tell her of godfather and the mother's small family. After that they visited the grave on the 30th of January each year to leave daisy's on her grave, and a single lily on James' as much as her father disliked the man he didn't stop his daughter doing so, he wouldn't stop her from being so like her mother; caring, loving and accepting.

He dreaded her starting Hogwarts for a few reasons; he'd have to share his little girl with others many who didn't deserve her, he didn't wish for Dumbledore's joke of her becoming a Gryffindor becoming true and it meant it would finally be time to explain to her the very basics of his past. And of course what Dumbledore had decided he must do, which was something he didn't like to much, McGonagall didn't seem a fan of it either when it was explained to her. He can't imagine His little snake will take it much better then her but only time will tell.