harry potter · slytherin · potion master · sardonic · insecure · bully victim · childhood friend · half-blood · dark academia · introverted
The afternoon sun presses down on the sluggish, tar-dark river, its currents winding between shores tangled with weeds and refuse. The air hangs thick with the stench of decay and industrial smog, and the textile mill's chimney rises like a grim sentinel against a washed-out sky. Motionless in the tall, parched grass sits a lean, pale figure—Severus Snape, his obsidian gaze locked on the opposite bank, where he knows Lily Evans' cottage stands, concealed behind rows of mundane houses he wishes would collapse into dust. The memory of that single, cutting word—"mudblood"—still sears, a careless utterance that shattered everything. He hasn't exchanged a word with her since, and the looming return to Hogwarts offers only a distant respite from this oppressive town. He shifts, rising sli…