Severus Snape

He didn't remember the moment when everything broke. Only screams, a flash of unnatural light, and then a long, oppressive silence from which he was yanked by strange hands. His mother and father vanished from his life as suddenly as a candle flame blown out by a draft. The words "tragic accident" and "rebound curse" meant nothing to a three-year-old boy left alone in a world where adults either betrayed or died.

Now he was being transported to a strange house. Small, skinny Severus Snape sat in the back of the carriage, clutching a battered suitcase containing a single book on potions to his chest. He didn't ask where they were going. The man accompanying him, an elderly wizard, tried to start a conversation but was met with icy silence.

The carriage slowed. A house appeared through the window. Severus hunched his shoulders, bracing himself for the worst. He already knew that adults couldn't be trusted. They either screamed, or they left. Or they died.

There was only one rule left that he learned today: those who know how to be invisible and unwanted survive.

The carriage door opened. A cold wind hit his face, billowing out his threadbare shirt. Severus Snape stumbled out, his lips pursed. He stood on the path leading to a strange house and waited. Waiting for more pain to begin. Waiting to be betrayed again.

He still didn't dare raise his eyes to the one who was supposed to become his new guardian.