A/N: I posted this on my tumblr the other day and decided I wanted to post it here too.
Platform 9 ¾, 1976
Eileen Snape knew something was wrong with her son the moment he stepped off the Hogwart's Express at Platform 9 3/4 - the certainty of it weighed in her bones like lead.
Severus, dressed in Muggle attire (too-short jeans, a threadbare flannel shirt, and overcoat - both of which had once belonged to his father), lugged his school trunk from his train compartment with difficulty. He looked thinner than she remembered - had he not been eating? Dark bags hung beneath his eyes. His greasy hair hung in his face, barely concealing the sour look he gave a group of rowdy boys who pushed past him. Eileen approached her son.
"Severus," she greeted with a stiff nod.
"Mother," he replied, regarding her in the same cold, formal way.
"I received a letter from the Headmaster the other day," she said. "You got into another fight?"
"It was nothing," he mumbled, lowering his gaze.
Eileen put her cold, thin hand under his chin and forced him to look at her with a snap of her wrist.
"Look at me while I'm talking to you, Severus!" she hissed. "I doubt it was nothing if the Headmaster felt the need to write me. You have no idea how displeased I was when I received that letter. You're lucky your father didn't read it..."
Her son's eyes were hollow, like dark tunnels.
"What is wrong with you?" she demanded in a low voice, making sure others around them couldn't hear.
Before Severus had the chance to respond, a girl with ivory skin and dark red hair rushed past them, her sweet scent washing over them in her wake. Her son's black eyes followed her as she rushed to her family. She threw her arms around her father's neck and he twirled her round in circles. She released her father and hugged her mother tightly, bursting into tears.
"Isn't that your Mudblood friend?" Eileen asked loudly, turning up her nose with a hint of a sneer. Severus flinched involuntarily. "She is certainly making a scene, isn't she?"
He pointedly ignored her comments. He continued to watch the family, unblinking. At that moment, the red-haired girl looked over her shoulder and her stunning green eyes bore coldly into her son's black ones, which were suddenly gleaming with hope and apprehension.
His pretty friend promptly looked away, turned up her nose, and left the platform with her family, her father trailing after the two women with a scarlet and gold trunk in hand.
"Isn't she going to say hello?" Eileen said in a shrill, affronted tone.
The look that had been in Severus's eyes was quickly replaced by a dejected one.
"Why should she? We're not friends anymore."