Disclaimer: Not mine.

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Severus Snape was an outcast; no friends, no hobbies. He went to class, went to the library, ate, slept and avoided people.

Minerva found herself watching him more than other students. Recollecting memories of mealtimes spent poring over musty tomes, fighting to get to the top of the class, her eyes would be drawn to his quiet, hunched figure.

He was a Slytherin, and she had her House pride, but she was never biased. Just as she smiled at Sirius Black, or James Potter, she smiled at him and watched him look away uncomfortably.

She heard the other teachers speculating over who they would have to watch after graduating. It was firmly decided early on that he would be joining the Death Eater ranks. She argued, telling them he just liked to read and make potions, and just because he was in Slytherin didn't make him evil.

It was an Order meeting where Dumbledore told them that Voldemort had had a recruiting night. It was with sad eyes that he gave them a list of new Death Eaters, his name among them. And she gasped with the unexpected pain of one of her children's betrayal as she clenched one hand around her wand and shut her eyes—

—and opened them to face the white tomb of her mentor, her teacher, her friend. She put on a stony face as she killed the image of the quiet boy in the library who so reminded her of herself, and brought up the picture of the brooding, snappish man who had murdered many, many people, his own savior among them.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Guilt and rage and grief roiled in her stomach as she swallowed hard and felt the pain emanating from the students around her, standing as a familiar anchor they could all look to.

She stared into the phoenix flames and promised that she would kill him, as he had killed the studious boy who had read in the library.

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A/N: Minerva thinks he went evil, I don't. End of story.

In case the ending is confusing, it means that he killed his inner child, basically.