Prince Reborn

"Called me a Mudblood? But you call everyone of my background Mudbloods, Severus. What makes me any different?"

At the entrance to Gryffindor Tower, Severus Snape blinked sharply and saw a girl with sparkling green eyes.

She shot him a disdainful glance, turned, and crawled through an opening.

A thick wooden board immediately swung shut in front of him, covering the opening.

On the board, a plump woman yawned impatiently.

"Alright, alright, get back to your dormitory." The Fat Lady muttered sleepily, "Students shouldn't be wandering the corridors at this hour."

Wait, where the hell did this send me?

A sharp pain suddenly tore through Snape's head, as though it were about to split his skull in two.

His vision blurred. He collapsed to his knees with a thud, bracing himself against the floor with his elbows as his whole body trembled.

Chaotic memories surged through Snape's mind: Spinner's End, Hogwarts, flying spells, Lily Evans...

The scenes flashing endlessly through his mind were like shattered puzzle pieces. Strange yet familiar, they cut through his thoughts like sharp blades, leaving his head throbbing with agony.

After an unknown amount of time, the pain finally began to fade. He weakly raised his head and finally understood his situation—he had transmigrated.

This was Gryffindor Tower.

The girl who had left was Lily Evans.

His current identity was Severus Snape.

As he sorted through his chaotic thoughts and merged memories, he confirmed one fact:

This very afternoon, after the O.W.L. examinations ended, driven by the pain of James Potter's humiliation, he had already said that unforgivable word to Lily.

Just now, he had been making his final attempt to explain himself and win her back.

But clearly, he had failed.

According to the original story, Snape and Lily would part ways from this point onward.

"Lily..." he murmured softly. "How did this happen...?"

Two emotions clashed violently within him. Knowing the ending, he even wanted to rush straight into the Gryffindor dormitory and explain everything to Lily.

But another voice told him that if he really did that, he would only make things worse.

At that moment, those bright green eyes had somehow become blurred in his mind. He could no longer tell what exactly he felt for Lily...

Was it love? He was not sure.

Was it desire? He did not know either.

The memories of the past felt so close, yet so distant...

Under the dim light of the torches along the stone corridor walls, Snape staggered toward the marble staircase.

Not long ago, he had been happily playing Hogwarts Legacy at home.

He had merely paused between controlling his fifth-year transfer student around the map in search of people to cast spells on and putting two drops of eye medicine into his dry eyes.

He had never expected that, in the blink of an eye, he would arrive at Hogwarts in the summer of 1976.

After instinctively stepping over the stair that vanished, he sat down against the stone steps and sorted through the tangled, surging memories in his mind.

"It's been over a week since I called home... The monthly report isn't finished either... From now on... what am I supposed to do...?"

The still air was so oppressive it was hard to breathe.

"But looking on the bright side."

After an unknown amount of time, he finally reached into his robes and drew out a Wand made of ebony and Dragon Heartstring. With a light flick, a thin beam of light emerged from its tip.

"Magic."

Gazing at the wavering light, Severus Snape murmured tiredly:

"Since I'm here... then starting today, I am the new 'Prince.'"

"Nox."

The glow from the Wand immediately went out.

He pulled up the sleeve on his left arm and checked it. Fortunately, there was no Dark Mark there yet.

Snape descended deeper and deeper beneath the castle until he reached an empty, damp stone wall.

He lowered his head and thought for a while before remembering that this week's new password was "Purity Forever."

Heh, "Purity Forever"?

Wasn't Tom Riddle a half-blood too?

Snape rolled his eyes at the blank wall.

As he softly spoke the password, a stone door hidden within the wall slowly opened.

He made his way down a spiral staircase covered in tapestries.

The Slytherin common room was a long, low underground chamber.

The walls and ceiling were built from rough stone. Round lamps glowing green hung from the ceiling on chains.

Even in summer, the temperature in the dungeon was not high.

Beneath an exquisitely carved fireplace in front of him, a fire crackled brightly.

The warm red light of the fire and the green glow of the lamps illuminated several Slytherin students seated in ornate armchairs.

Apart from several younger students, Snape spotted one of his roommates—Patrick Aber.

He sat off to one side alone, reading a leather-bound tome titled Advanced Runes Translation beneath the lamplight.

Aber had always been uninterested in, even disgusted by, the so-called humor Mulciber and Avery—his other two roommates—directed at Muggle-born Wizards.

By extension, he had never shown Snape a friendly face either.

For a pure-blood Slytherin from one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, Aber's attitude was quite rare.

Ignoring the curious looks around him, Snape headed toward the boys' dormitory on one side, then turned into the washroom.

The silver lamps in the washroom gave off the same dark green light.

Lake water lapped softly against the window at the end of the washroom, and occasionally several enormous black shadows swam past outside.

Snape carefully examined the "new face" in the mirror and could not help muttering:

"What part of this is black? Why did they have to get a black actor to play him?

"James may be awful, but you can't falsely accuse him of being racist..."

His reflection was somewhat thin, though he could barely be considered solidly built.

His complexion was simply pale, like a plant that had grown in darkness all its life.

His long black hair was straight and greasy, his nose bridge high, while its tip curved downward into a pronounced hook.

Suddenly, the humiliation from daytime replayed uncontrollably in Snape's mind.

Beech tree... boredom... Snivellus... suffocating soap bubbles... dangling robes... the crowd's cheers and laughter... filthy little Mudblood...

The memory made his breathing tremble uncontrollably. The muscles in his face seemed to lose all sensation, while his eyes filled with rage.

In a daze, the reflection in the mirror and the figure before it seemed to gradually merge together.

Snape slowly raised his Wand. One hand swept back his hair while the other guided the Wand's tip over its ends beneath the light.

Strands of hair drifted down.

Black eyes stared into black eyes as Snape whispered to himself, "James Potter, this isn't over between us..."

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