Prince's Rebirth

"--Call me a Mudblood? But you call everyone of my background Mudblood, Severus. How am I any different?"

At the entrance to Gryffindor Tower, Severus Snape blinked sharply, catching sight of a girl with a pair of bright green eyes.

He watched as she cast a look of disdain his way, then turned and climbed through the portrait hole.

A thick wooden board swung shut before him, sealing the entrance.

On the board, a plump woman yawned impatiently.

"Alright, alright, off to your dormitory with you," the Fat Lady muttered sleepily. "Students shouldn't be wandering the corridors at this hour."

Wait, where exactly has this brought me?

A searing pain suddenly pierced through Snape's head, as if his skull were being split in two.

His vision blurred, and with a heavy thud, he collapsed to his knees, bracing himself on the floor with his elbows, his entire body trembling.

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

The images flickering through his brain were like shattered puzzle pieces; these strange yet familiar scenes felt like sharp blades, churning his mind into a state of agonizing torment.

He did not know how much time had passed before the pain finally subsided, and he lifted his head weakly, finally realizing his situation—he had transmigrated.

This was Gryffindor Tower.

The girl who had just left was Lily Evans.

His current identity was Severus Snape.

As he sorted through his tangled thoughts and the merging memories, he confirmed one fact:

Just this afternoon, after the O.W.L. exams, stung by the humiliation inflicted by James Potter, he had already uttered that unforgivable word to Lily.

Moments ago, he had been making a final attempt at defense and reconciliation.

But clearly, he had failed.

According to the original trajectory, Snape and Lily would part ways from this point on.

"Lily..." he murmured softly, "how could it come to this..."

Two conflicting emotions clashed violently within him; knowing the ending, he felt an urge to rush into the Gryffindor dormitory and explain everything to her.

Yet, another voice warned him that if he truly did that, it would only make matters worse.

At this moment, those bright green eyes seemed to blur in his mind, and he could no longer distinguish what his feelings for Lily truly were...

Was it love? He wasn't sure.

Was it longing? He didn't know that either.

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

Under the dim light of the torches lining the stone corridor, Snape stumbled toward the marble staircase.

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

He had merely been putting eye drops into his dry eyes during a break from guiding his fifth-year transfer student across the map in search of targets for his spells.

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

Subconsciously skipping over the trick step that liked to vanish, he leaned against the stone stairs, organizing the complex and surging memories in his mind.

"I haven't called home in over a week... the monthly report isn't finished either... and now... what happens now..."

The heavy silence was suffocating.

"Still, look on the bright side."

After an unknown amount of time, he finally reached into his robes and pulled out a wand made of ebony with a Dragon Heartstring core, giving it a light flick to produce a thin beam of light from the tip.

"Magic."

Staring at the flickering light, Severus Snape murmured wearily:

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

"Nox."

The light on the wand extinguished instantly.

He pulled up the sleeve on his left arm to check his skin. Fortunately, the Dark Mark was not there yet.

Snape walked deeper into the bowels of the castle until he reached a blank, damp stone wall.

He lowered his head in thought for a moment before recalling that the new password for the week was "Purity Forever."

Heh, "Purity Forever"?

Wasn't Tom Riddle a half-blood himself?

Snape rolled his eyes at the empty wall.

As he whispered the password, a stone door hidden within the wall slowly creaked open.

He descended along the spiral staircase, which was lined with tapestries.

The Slytherin common room was a long, low-ceilinged dungeon.

The walls and ceiling were constructed of rough-hewn stone, with round, greenish lamps hanging from chains attached to the ceiling.

Even in the height of summer, the temperature in the dungeon remained low.

Before him, beneath a finely carved mantelpiece, a fire crackled and popped.

The warm red glow of the hearth and the green light from the lamps illuminated the figures of several Slytherin students sitting in carved armchairs.

Aside from a few younger students, Snape spotted one of his roommates—Patrick Aber.

He sat alone to one side, flipping through a thick, leather-bound tome titled Advanced Runes Translation under the lamplight.

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

Consequently, he never gave Snape a pleasant look either.

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

Ignoring the curious gazes of others, Snape walked toward the boys' dormitory on the side and turned into the washroom.

The silver lamps in the washroom emitted a light that was also a deep, ink-green.

Lake water lapped rhythmically against the window at the end of the washroom, and from time to time, massive dark shadows swam past outside.

Snape carefully scrutinized the "new face" in the mirror and couldn't help but mutter:

"Where is this dark? Why on earth would they cast a Black actor for this?

"Even though James is detestable, you can't just go around accusing people of being racists..."

The reflection in the mirror was somewhat thin, though he could barely be considered sturdy of bone and muscle.

It was just that his complexion was pale, like a plant that had grown in the darkness its entire life.

His long, black hair was straight and greasy, his nose bridge was high, and the tip of his nose curved downward into a prominent hook.

Suddenly, the humiliation of the day resurfaced in Snape's mind, uncontrollable.

The beech tree... out of boredom... Snivellus... suffocating soap bubbles... dangling robes... the cheers and laughter of the crowd... that stinking little Mudblood...

The memories made his breathing tremble uncontrollably; the muscles in his face seemed to lose all sensation, and his eyes filled with fury.

In a trance, the reflection in the mirror and the figure before it seemed to gradually merge into one.

Snape slowly raised his wand, using one hand to smooth back his hair while the other controlled the tip of the wand, lightly grazing the ends of his hair in the lamplight.

Strands of hair drifted to the floor.

Black eyes stared into black eyes as Snape whispered to himself: "James Potter, things between us are far from over..."

New book, please add to your library and keep reading, thank you!