Author's note (12 November 2018) - Phew! I've just completed a massive rewrite, adding nearly 20,000 more words to this story, as well as some scenes I should have included during my first go, in addition to making general improvements. I am so very proud of this labor of love, and worked very hard to make it as canon compliant and in character as possible. I hope you enjoy it x

Harry Potter and his world belong to JK Rowling.

"Professor?" Hermione called into the empty office, her voice echoing off of the cold dungeon walls. She frowned. He was usually here after his third class of the day, marking papers, planning for his next class, or attending to the numerous potions bubbling away. However, his body was not settled in his wooden chair, his head bowed over the stack of parchment as it almost always was. She peered into a storeroom, knocking on the heavy wooden door to alert him to her presence. He still was nowhere to be found, and she was slightly disconcerted. Hermione placed her schoolbag on top of a work table, determined to wait until he came back. She pulled out her History of Magic textbook and began studying the pages intently to pass the time.

After half an hour of waiting she was beginning to get restless. Hermione stood up and walked around the perimeter of the small room lined with wooden cabinets and shelves. She peered through the glass-paned cabinet to inspect one of the jars. There was a pickled fire slug inside, floating in a thick green liquid. She moved along the cabinets, inspecting the pewter and brass cauldrons stacked within each other, and then bottles upon bottles of ingredients, her eyes casting over the lovage, Jobberknoll feathers, and sneezewort. Everything was arranged in alphabetical order and in neat, measured amounts.

Hermione's attention was drawn to the cabinet behind Snape's desk. One of the wooden doors was opened slightly, and she could see a flickering, faint blue light within it. She looked about the empty office once more before stepping behind his desk, her hand pushing open the cabinet door to reveal a small Pensieve. The silvery thoughts floated within the liquid, swirling and glowing as if they had only just been added. Pensieves were exceeding rare, and despite having read about their function and how to use them, Harry was the only person she had spoken to about what it was like to enter one. She stepped closer to better observe it, overpowered by her intense curiosity and a desire to view this magical object that she had never seen before. She leaned over, amazed to see little figures playing out a scene - she assumed, a memory - below her. She bent over a bit further to see if she could hear what they were saying and before she could stop, she felt herself falling down, down into the Pensieve.

She landed on her feet, feeling a little shaken by what had happened. She did not know how to pull herself out, she thought, her stomach seizing in fear. If Snape were to find her... She blanched at the thought.

She looked around the room, wondering how to get out, and instantly realizing where she was. The tall shelves of the Hogwarts library towered over her, dusty and leaning in exactly as they did now. A few Hufflepuffs sat around a table a few feet from her, but they didn't notice her presence. As she turned around, parts of her vision became fuzzy, with entire areas she couldn't see at all. She walked around a bookshelf and found a small, thin girl who she faintly recognized. The girl was perched on a stool with her legs crossed, dressed in what Hermione guessed was a very old fashioned set of Ravenclaw robes. She wore a long grey skirt which went down past her knees, white socks and black shoes, a white blouse with bronze buttons, and a bright blue cardigan. Her black hair was twisted back in a bun, her black eyes scanning the yellowed pages of the book on her lap. Hermione noted that the page she was on explained how to brew an elixir to induce euphoria, which was quite advanced magic for someone who looked like they were only in their second or third year.

She watched as the girl flipped the page and the book slipped out of her lap, landing on the floor with the front cover lying open. Hermione recognized the book at once, for before the girl could snatch it back, she glimpsed a tiny scrawl of cursive which read "Prince" in the upper margin. As the girl closed it, Hermione viewed the clear lettering Advanced Potion-Making on the binding. Her heart leapt and, as everything grew faint, she tried her hardest to memorize the face of the girl reaching for her book. The face, she realized, of Severus Snape's mother.

Everything turned black. Hermione wondered if she would now be able to leave the Pensieve, but then immediately felt a cold wind whipping around her body, snow pelting her face and landing in her hair. She realized that she was now in a narrow alleyway on a bleak winter's evening. To her surprise, a woman was standing in front of her, a matured and beautiful version of the school girl, and she was digging through her handbag. Suddenly, two men rushed past where Hermione stood and knocked the woman into the brick wall, trying to snatch her handbag. Hermione's hand was instantly on her wand, but just as she remembered she could be of no help in a memory, another man who was walking by quickly wrestled the bag from one of the thugs.

"Get away from 'er!" he ordered, glaring at the two men with icy blue eyes and a cold stare. Hermione's heart lurched again. She noticed the way the woman stared at her savior with admiration, and then became aware of his lank brown hair, stooping physique, and his prominent hooked nose.

The location changed, and the woman from before appeared again, now arguing with a graying middle-aged lady dressed in a fine green silk dress. The stood in the plush living room of a well-to-do family.

"He's a Muggle, Eileen," exclaimed the elder, "who you haven't even told that you are a witch! You can't throw away your life for a Muggle!"

"I can prove to you that he's a good m-man." She wrung her hands, her dark hair trailing down her back. "Tobias is... d-different from other Muggles!"

"You can find a decent wizard to marry. Even... even a Muggle-born!" she cried, waving her hands in desperation. "But Muggles won't... they don't have the capacity to understand our world. Even if he could accept you for who you are, it will always be something that he doesn't have, he won't be capable of. You are a brilliant witch. Why would you want to spend your life with someone who will always be holding you back?" Eileen's mother was furious, but at the same time terrified for her daughter and the choice she would inevitably make. "At least tell him you are a witch before you decide to marry!"

After a few moments, Eileen closed her eyes, her pale face strained, tears forming at the creases of her eyes. She turned from her mother, wordlessly, to leave the room.

"Eileen!" her mother shouted after her, but everything faded away.

There was a glimpse of Eileen and Tobias at the altar inside of a church, only a few people in attendance at their wedding. The vision came and went quickly, and then Hermione was pitched into blackness again. After a few more moments, she found herself standing in a small bedroom with a bed, short dresser and large closet. The walls were a plain white, with only a few small picture frames hung upon them.

A much thinner and unhappy Eileen came running into the room, her eyes red as if she had been crying for some time. She opened up her closet and pulled out a small chest from beneath a pile of boxes. Her name, "Eileen Prince," was printed on the side in neat cursive. She knelt down next to it on the ground. Eileen opened her old Hogwarts trunk, her hands shaking as she picked through her old, frayed textbooks, her neatly folded Ravenclaw robes, a cauldron laying on its side and stuffed with old socks, a set of solid gold gobstones, and then last of all a long, elegant, black birch wand which she ran her fingers over. She began sobbing, wiping the tears from her eyes and flicking the wand into the air, watching as a light shone out of the end, flickered, and then went out. Hermione felt devastated for her. She had heard of witches and wizards losing their power from great sadness or loss, and she could not imagine it. She could not imagine that pain.

Eileen, with great concentration, cast a Disillusionment Charm over the objects before her. Everything within disappeared from sight, one by one. She locked her trunk, shoved it back into the closet, and hid her wand in one of her drawers. The heavy-browed man with dark hair strode into the room, his entire body in a state of rage.

"I knew," he began, in a thick accent, "I knew tha' you were strange from th' beginnin'. But this magic nonsense... Don't tell me tha' you actually think it's real?"

She looked up at him as she knelt next to the dresser. "I... I was b-born into a magical f-family. I went to school for it, to t-train. I'm a w-witch, Tobias." She spoke as though she had said these words many times, and as if she knew his reaction this time would be no different.

He stared at her with hatred in his eyes and raised his hand, bringing it down with such force against her cheek that Eileen cried out at the harshness of the slap. Hermione gasped, despite herself. Eileen's hand reached to cradle where the blow had connected and whimpered.

"Enough," he fumed. "Enough. I will no' hear about this magic again." He left, slamming the door behind him, and Hermione immediately understood that what had drawn Eileen to him in the first place was now being used against her. He was a brute. A monster. She watched as Eileen leant her body against the dresser, and sobbed and sobbed.

They faded before the room reappeared, this time a little grimier and darker than it had been. Tobias was nowhere to be found and Eileen was lying in bed, her back supported by pillows. There was a small white bundle in her arms. Emotion welled up within Hermione, for cradled next to her breast was a small baby who could not be anyone but an infant Severus Snape. He had a wealth of black hair, his cheeks a bright pink, his little tongue sticking out as he slept.

"I hope, for your sake, you aren't a wizard," whispered Eileen, laying a kiss on his soft forehead. Hermione stood looking over her shoulder, unable to comprehend the fact that a man such as Severus Snape had once lay in the arms of his mother. She could believe even less that he had come from such a family.

The memory changed and the family was now in a downstairs room of the same small, cramped home. A little black-haired boy was crying in a corner and Eileen was standing over him, shielding him from his father.

"How does he always manage to know wha' I am thinkin' of?" Tobias demanded. "I can list numbers in my head and he can guess them all. Sometimes I'll be sittin' in my chair and he'll appear out of nowhere when he couldn' 'ave been in the room before me. It's not natural, Eileen!" he yelled, daring her to make the explanation he knew she would.

"He's a w-wizard, Tobias," she sobbed. "He was b-born one."

"No," he said sharply. "You can be... be... mental, but you can' make him a 'wizard' too."

"I can't help it, please!" she cried, her knees buckling as Tobias stepped towards her, his hand raised again. Eileen flinched as he leaned down, ready to hit her, but his hand stopped in midair without touching her, impeded by an unseen force. He panicked, backing away, only to find his son's little frightened but hard, black eyes upon him. Tobias let out a small, manic gasp, then turned to the front door, opening it and slamming it behind him.

Eileen turned around and threw her arms around her small, scrawny son, drawing him closer. His arms wound their way around her neck as well as he sought comfort. "Severus, I'm so s-sorry... I w-wish I could have given you m-more," she wept. He could not have been older than four. His thin face bore a remarkable resemblance to his mother's, and he burrowed into her neck as he ached to be comforted. There was already so much similarity to his older self, his nose taking shape, his dark hair which hadn't been cut recently, his yellowed skin, his deep black eyes framed by heavy brows...

Eileen and Severus faded as the room changed. They were now in a smaller bedroom than the one Eileen and Tobias slept in, with a little bed and a thin Severus sitting on top of it. He was a few years older than he had been in the last memory. He was tucked under the duvet, a flickering candle sitting on the bedside table to light the room. His mother sat at his side, her arm wrapped around him as she read from the first year's Potions book, Magical Drafts and Potions, which lay open in his lap. Judging by how worn the cover was, it must have been the copy Eileen had used as a student. The look on Severus's face was intent and focused as he took in the information.

After a while Severus's mother stopped reading, closed the book, and had him lean his head against her chest as she stroked his hair. "Would you like to learn how to make potions, someday soon?"

Severus, despite how tired he was, perked up at the thought before becoming dismayed. "Won't Father be angry?" he asked in a small voice. Hermione stepped closer before sitting down at the foot of the bed. It was so strange to be in the room with them without them noticing. She could have reached out and touched Eileen's hand if she had wanted to.

"Yes, Severus, he would be very angry. But you and I, we can hide things like this if we wanted to. A potion can be disguised, not like spells or charms can. He would not know any better, and would probably think it's just soup on the stove. But we'll know," she said, smiling down at him, tugging at his ear playfully. He turned to look at her, putting his hand up to his ear and smirking in order to hide a grin. His smile was what Eileen had been hoping for.

"Mummy, why don't you ever do any magic?" he asked.

Eileen drew away, as though thinking about how she would explain, before she pulled him closer. "Well, my love, your father doesn't believe in magic."

"But... if it's real, why doesn't he believe in it?"

"I don't know, love. He grew up in a place where magic isn't thought to be real, so it's hard for him to accept it. He also might be angry that he can't do magic, and I can." She paused. "He doesn't particularly like things that he doesn't understand."

Severus was silent, before adding, "But you don't do magic much. Why would he still be angry? And if he will always be angry, why don't you do magic all the time anyway?"

She smiled fondly at his cleverness and responded, "It's complicated. But once you go to school you'll be able to perform as much magic as you want, without worrying what your father thinks."

"I'll go to Hogwarts in four years, right?"

"Yes, you will." She paused, looked around the neat but almost bare room, and said, "But right now, it's time for you to go to sleep." Eileen stepped out of his bed, put the book on the bedside table, kissed him again, and tucked him in tighter.

She moved to leave the room, at which point Severus exclaimed, "Mummy, you forgot to put out the light!" Eileen turned, feeling a little ashamed for forgetting, before a smirk which was identical to her son's formed on her face.

"No matter," she said, waving her hand in the direction of the flame. A strong gust of wind blew out the candle, the smoke rising from the burnt wick. Severus, pleased with his mother's wandless magic, smiled and turned into his pillow. Eileen shut the door.

The scene changed once more. Eileen was sitting on a chair at the kitchen table and Severus was standing at the stove, bits of leaves and berries in his hands, a cauldron brewing before him and the Potions book open beside him as he read. The room they were standing in then shifted into a Muggle charity shop, and Hermione watched Eileen dig through a bin of children's jeans and corduroys. Severus jumped out from the clothes rack beside her and she shrieked, before grabbing him and kissing him on the cheek repeatedly, then placing a shilling into his small hand and telling him to go find a toy he liked. Hermione noticed the other women in the store staring at them darkly. Then, there was a glimpse of a playground and Severus, in his ill-fitting clothes, talking to a young girl with bright red hair.

His mother's bedroom came back into view. Eileen laid in bed and Severus entered, now older than before. He ran towards his mother, a thick scroll of parchment in his hand.

"An owl pecked at my window so I let him in, and he gave me this!" he exclaimed.

"'Mr. S. Snape, The Smallest Bedroom, Spinner's End,'" read Eileen, wearily. "Well, it's addressed to you. Open it." She watched his face light up with glee as he read his acceptance letter out loud. Time must have passed for although they were in the same room as before, Eileen was now sitting on the ground, bent over her Hogwarts trunk. She used her wand to change the name on the side to "Severus Snape", and went through the trunk's contents after removing the Disillusionment Charm.

"Well, it's a good thing that the school books haven't changed because I kept all of mine. You're just going to have to use them because I only have a few sickles which will buy your robes. Oh, it won't be so bad," she said as she noticed his disappointment. "You're brilliant enough. You already have them all memorized, even the more advanced ones." She ruffled his hair, and he straightened it when she looked away. Eileen then cradled her wand, almost affectionately, before taking it by the tip and pointing the handle to her son.

"Take it, Severus." He looked up at her, his mouth open in astonishment. "It's birch, thirteen and a half inches long, and the core is dragon heartstring."

"But, Mum, it's your wand!" he exclaimed.

"We don't have the money to buy you your own, and besides, I can't use it here," she said simply. "It wouldn't have a true owner if it was sitting in my dresser drawer, waiting for someone to use it. It had no other options, so, in a way, it has chosen you. Now, give it a swish." He did, and Eileen watched as golden ribbons shot out of the end and fluttered back down to the floor in a heap. The expression in his eyes was one of true wonder.

Hermione blinked, and she was standing at Platform Nine and Three Quarters, the scarlet Hogwarts Express hissing as it warmed up to leave. Among the mass of students she noticed with a shock a few faces she had only known through pictures, or as adults. Sirius Black walked right past her, his parents pulling his trunk. A scrawny James Potter appeared, a little further away, standing by himself next to a large cage with a tawny owl inside. She saw the girl with red hair from the faint memory before and a realization hit her - it was Lily Potter. She was waving at Severus, who stood near Hermione. His mother was there, her face white and bloodless as she bent to give her son a kiss goodbye. Tears were in her eyes, and Hermione could only imagine how terrible it must have been for Eileen to see her only child, the only one she loved, leave for school.

The hectic mass of people in the train station around her shifted, and she found herself in dormitories decorated in the green and silver of Slytherin House. Severus, much older than when she had last seen him, sat alone on his bed, his body shaking. Hermione leaned over his shoulder, reading the piece of parchment in his hands.

Mr. Severus Snape,

We regret to inform you that your mother, Eileen Prince Snape, was brought to the Ministry of Magic to undergo a court hearing earlier today. She has been found guilty of attempting to murder your father, Tobias Oran Snape. He was found unconscious last night in his house located in Cokeworth. He has been treated for poisoning at a nearby Muggle hospital and will recover.

At her hearing, Eileen Prince Snape was ordered to serve a life sentence in Azkaban Prison. However, because of her frail physical and mental health, she has temporarily been placed in the Janus Thickey Ward at St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries to undergo treatment for her illness. Once she has recovered, she will be transferred to Azkaban Prison.

We will continue to update you on her condition as she progresses.

Regards,

Blodrick Grompton

Head Healer

Severus stood up, Hermione now realizing his true age and height. He had to have been in his fifth or sixth year. He turned around, so furious and upset that he didn't know what to do. "I hate you!" he bellowed at no one in particular. Hermione was alarmed when he took the lamp from his bedside table and threw it to the ground, watching the glass break into pieces on the dungeon's stone floor. He kicked the table, watching it fall on its side, and then picked up a book on Complex Transfiguration, hurling it into the fire, causing sparks to fly. "How could you...?" he cried. "How could you let yourself be caught?" His deep voice cracked as his wand slipped from his hands and fell to the floor.

Hermione watched as he sunk back down onto his bed and began sobbing loudly, his hands covering his face as he rocked from side to side. She knelt down next to the bed, her knees touching the ground, unaffected by the table or shards of glass which lay there. She had never seen him so uncontrolled, so full of despair, that she could not help as an overwhelming feeling of grief filled her as well.

After a long time he sat up and turned to the other side of his bed, digging through his trunk. He fished out his copy of Advanced Potion-Making, opening up the cover and staring at the neat cursive of "Prince" which stained the page. Finding a quill and an ink well, he scrawled, "This Book is the Property of the Half-Blood" directly above and in front of his own mother's "Prince." He did not need to take care to match his own handwriting with his mother's. It had always been similar, for it was she who had first put a quill in his hand, moving it within her own to teach him his letters. He flipped through the yellowed pages, his tears dripping off his curved nose and spattering against the instructions and illustrations. Hermione could see the beginnings of the scrawled notes which would eventually cover those pages.

She could sense the wheels turning in his head. He would refrain from associating himself with his father's last name, at least in his own mind, for his father was the one who had refused to acknowledge his wife's magical skill and identity. It was his fault that Severus's mother was trapped in a world that was not her own and never would be, that she had been abused and unhappy her whole adult life. And now Eileen was the criminal, even though her husband had hurt her far beyond what was reparable.

Hermione saw someone moving in the shadows to her right, past the bed. She stood up, trying to make out who it was, before Severus Snape in his adult form materialized out of the darkness. She stared at him, watching him stare back, before she realized with a jolt to her stomach that the scenery hadn't changed. His adolescent self was still sitting on the bed, sniffling, and Hermione's head snapped back to the Severus which had appeared, her face blanching and then turning a bright red. She had been caught.

"I - Professor Snape, I-I," she choked, stopping short from the expression on his face.

"Time to go, Miss Granger," he snarled, grabbing her elbow and jerking her upwards. Her stomach turned as she was pulled up and out of the Pensieve, landing back into her feet, which she realized smarted from how long she had been standing there on the hard flagstones. Severus Snape's face was whiter than she'd ever seen it, and his voice seethed with so much anger he had difficulty controlling it. "What could possibly possess you to go through my private cabinets, you impudent girl! How dare you touch what isn't yours?" She made to open her mouth but shut it promptly, her whole body trembling, seeing that he was not finished. "But you decided to take special liberties with me and my things, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU?" he bellowed, swooping down closer and standing over her, his face flushed but hard as stone, his black eyes penetrating hers. She knew that he could instantly see everything that she had seen.

She stepped back, looking away. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she choked, sorry about looking through his memories, sorry for everything they had contained.

"Out - get - out," he spat, venomously, pointing towards the door. He watched, fuming, as she tearfully grabbed her bag and open book, running out of his office to escape his wrath, leaving him alone. His head bent over the Pensieve, staring blankly into its depths before sighing deeply, sadly, picking it up and putting it back into the cupboard, locking it with his wand as his hands shook with anger.