[Chapter Size: 2400 Words.]

Third Person POV

London.

...

...

On platform 3/4, a girl was pushing her cart with her luggage, just having passed through the portal between the pillar, while her platinum hair swayed from side to side with her bouncy steps, indicating that the girl was quite excited.

She quickly turned the cart toward the train the next moment, as they were preparing to depart. She appeared cheerfully, after all, she was returning to Hogwarts after the holidays had ended.

The crowd of people, with parents saying goodbye to their children, was spread out in front of the train, exchanging their last words of farewell with their children, crowding the station.

Eyes turned to the girl as soon as she became visible to everyone, entering the crowd with her father right behind Pandora, while small whispers arose from one to another. And Pandora didn’t seem to care about that.

All that appeared in her eyes was the train carriage, as she went on to organize her things and finally board.

"That’s her! She’s his fiancée... one of them!"

"She’s engaged to that monster."

"Hey, he defeated Voldemort, don’t forget that."

"Yes, and caused a massacre. There were bodies everywhere, that’s what my uncle, who works at the Ministry, said. The bodies were all mutilated... no one survived, a true terror."

"We’d better not mess with her."

"You talk as if he could escape the court of wizards. He’ll be thrown into Azkaban and given the Dementor’s kiss."

Someone shuddered.

"To think we were studying with him the whole time, while he could summon those black creatures we heard about... What is that? Dark magic. Snape was always involved with dark magic and must have discovered this power."

"I want you to stay far away from her and her associates, daughter."

Pandora continued walking through the crowd of students of all years and all houses. Even from Ravenclaw came comments about her and Severus. Parents also gave advice to stay away from her.

They were afraid and cautious, while others felt disgust and caution. But Pandora didn’t seem to care, she just went on to store her luggage.

"Let me help you, daughter." Her father was with her the entire time, casting cautious glances at everyone there. He certainly didn’t like the situation, but his daughter didn’t seem to care. And Severus seemed to have too much power for anyone to dare mess with his fiancée at school.

In any case, they stored the luggage and the time for farewell arrived.

"Goodbye, father. I’ll see you in a few months. But let’s keep in touch through letters." She said, while he nodded, watching her step into the train the next moment.

Pandora went on to an empty carriage, sitting down, while some first and second-year students opened the door to look for a vacant seat. They shuddered upon recognizing her.

"Hello... it’s Pandora..."

The children immediately swallowed hard. She was the fiancée of that powerful wizard from the newspapers; at least in their minds, Severus had become some kind of monster. When she looked, she saw that they quickly ran off, shutting the door hastily before fleeing.

She only sighed. "This is going to be a bit boring," she murmured, as she picked up a book to read, one about strange creatures she had found in the Prince mansion’s library.

The door opened again and she saw none other than a redhead, wearing a uniform with a prefect badge.

Pandora lifted her eyes from the book and stared at her, while Lily Evans also kept her gaze fixed on her. The redhead seemed to want to say something but didn’t know how.

"How can I help you, Lily?" Pandora asked casually, with a cheerful smile.

"Pandora..." The words finally came out of Lily’s mouth, with a certain caution. "Severus goes on trial tomorrow. I just wanted to know if he’s alright. My parents are a little worried, since we saw him during the holidays and he saved me and my parents." She said, her voice still laden with hesitation.

"Yes, he told me," Pandora stated. "He likes your parents." Lily couldn’t help but smile at that, waiting for Pandora to continue.

"And he’s fine, yes. We were with him yesterday at his house. He’ll sort everything out quickly." Pandora said with conviction, turning her attention back to the book.

"If you say so, then I believe you." Lily replied, seeming as if she wanted to ask more questions, but in the end gave up. She had no closeness at all with Pandora, nor anymore with Severus.

She felt her throat dry and her heart empty, still remembering the conversation she had had with Severus... the things he said, saying that she bore some of the blame for his partial suicide, for killing the old friend he once was.

But she couldn’t think much longer as she felt a shadow behind her.

"Could you give me some space?" said a voice in a tone not nearly as friendly as Pandora’s would have been.

Lily turned and found a girl wearing perfectly cut clothes, typical of pure-blood nobles. None other than Clarisse Greengrass, who stared at her almost like a challenge.

"Miss Greengrass," Lily finally said, stepping aside to let her in, though her voice sounded a little harsher, as if she had swallowed a whole nut.

"Thank you," Clarisse replied, without paying much attention. "Anyway, I’ll sit here. Pandora, how have you been? Sev told me he would spend the day today taking care of some last things before the trial." She said, sounding much friendlier than she had with Lily.

She spoke, completely ignoring Lily’s presence in the doorway, while the passing students glanced inside and shuddered at who was there. There weren’t just one, but two fiancées of Severus Prince.

Clarisse didn’t like those looks one bit. Pandora could ignore them, but she couldn’t. She turned her attention back to the door. "Can you close it? This is rather bothersome," Clarisse said.

Lily blinked a few times before nodding, her gaze somewhat lost as she stood there like a statue.

"Of course," she said, with the same dry tone, as she simply closed the door. She saw Clarisse ignoring her from behind the door and going back to talking about Severus with Pandora — or rather, "Sev," as she was already calling him. The same way Lily once did, which showed intimacy, something Lily would never have again. Another girl, or other girls, had taken her place, and there was nothing she could do.

She simply turned around and left with slumped shoulders. She would never see Severus again. Severus would not return to Hogwarts. Their relationship could never go back to what it once was, even if, perhaps, there was still something left in some corner of the heart. But that no longer existed for Severus.

She could tell him that she would agree to go out with James Potter, and Severus would simply not care. He would wish her good luck.

That left a horrible feeling in Lily’s heart, as if it were shattered. Regret and sadness swirled in her feelings, and she tried to ignore them, keeping a hard face so as not to cry, not to let the tears fall as she thought about it, as she had been doing in recent days. As she went on with her prefect duties, she planned to go into the bathroom after inspecting the whole train, just to ease her sadness with a bit of crying.

The journey continued, while Pandora and Clarisse had never been so close. They talked to each other the entire trip. There was much to talk about between them at that moment, so the conversation never stopped, even after hours. When night finally came, the train began to slow, and through the window Hogwarts could already be seen in the distance, the castle illuminated, its windows glowing in the highest towers.

Clarisse and Pandora left together. The Slytherin students looked on with some disgust, but also with distrust and fear. There was fear and anger among the snakes. Many of their relatives had been killed by Severus — killed like animals, torn apart as in the rumors, some with unrecognizable bodies. Perhaps they sought some kind of retaliation, but Clarisse was not worried in the slightest. She had been trained by Severus for a long time, even if not as much as Pandora. She might not have reached the final of the dueling tournament weeks ago like Pandora, but she had done very well. She knew how to take care of herself. Besides, she knew that Severus was also keeping an eye on them, able to reach them as soon as they needed help.

They went on to the school through the boats, as they did every year, while the luggage was carried by magic, without needing to be taken off the train. At the same time, they entered the communal hall, after being received by Minerva along with the other teachers. Everyone gathered in the Great Hall. There was no Sorting, since this was the return from the mid-year holidays, and there was no need to form groups of children for house selection.

Everyone in Slytherin looked surprised, suspicious, and even disgusted when they saw Pandora sitting next to Clarisse. Over in Ravenclaw, the looks were also suspicious and cautious, though Pandora was already sitting in Slytherin thanks to Severus, with no one daring to say anything. Pandora thought it best to sit with Clarisse as soon as she invited her, for the blonde had also noticed the looks from their classmates. In truth, the entire school was watching the two girls. In those eyes were questions and silent accusations.

In any case, everyone turned their gaze to the head table as the headmaster stood up and called for attention. Some had even forgotten his presence, having spent all that time staring at Pandora and Clarisse.

"Hello everyone. Well, I know I was away for a while, but it was necessary," began the man in his aged and calm voice, while people whispered among themselves, remembering that the headmaster they had seen since the beginning of the year was a fake, created with Polyjuice. No one knew or had an answer for where the real one had been hidden, probably imprisoned somewhere.

Many claimed it had been Severus, after his identity was revealed in the newspapers, that he was the one who had kidnapped him and kept him captive, only releasing him a few days ago. That also made everyone shudder with the question: could Severus Snape really be more powerful than Dumbledore? It wasn’t hard to wonder, or even to answer after what he had done to You-Know-Who.

"Well, in any case, I can assure you no harm was done to me. I had time to think, and it opened my eyes to many things. So I will go ahead and apologize to some people present in this hall." He spoke while Lily shuddered, her eyes holding silent anger against the headmaster ever since she discovered about the love potion he had used on her without her realizing, all so she could be used as a source to learn more about Severus. False feelings, with some of them still lingering within her, even with the potion Severus had given her. Perhaps that was why it still hurt so much to think about the things she had thought on the train.

Clarisse also had a cautious look as the headmaster had once tried to read her mind to gather information about Severus, when he couldn’t say what he was or how grave a threat he represented at the time.

Dumbledore had paid for that and managed to glimpse a little of what would happen to the world in the future.

People whispered to each other, wondering what he was talking about, while comments spread about who had been offended.

"Will Severus Snape no longer come to the school?"

Someone asked, making silence spread throughout the entire hall, while people looked cautiously at the one who had spoken. It was only a first-year student, frightened, not knowing much about the wizarding world. And even more frightened as hundreds of eyes were now on her at that moment.

Dumbledore gave a small smile.

"No, he will not come. Lord Prince," he corrected, since Snape was an old name. "Severus Prince made an agreement with me. He will not need to complete the rest of the sixth year nor the seventh year. Even so, he will take the N.E.W.T.s, perhaps this year or next year." Immediately, a murmur spread throughout the crowd.

"He’s going to take the exam?!"

"But... wait... isn’t he going to be arrested?!"

"Headmaster, he’s not a murderer! He shouldn’t be imprisoned!" shouted Sirius Black, as he caught sight of his brother’s gaze.

The Black family was one of the few that had survived. Regulus knew why: because his grandmother had chosen Severus instead of Voldemort. They said it was because of a vision she had. But he couldn’t help but sigh. He had seen the Death Eaters as a destiny after leaving school; being a master seemed promising, and until last year, Regulus had pursued the desire to learn from him... However, in the end, fate has ways of playing tricks. And now, the dark side was dead by the hand of Bellatrix’s fiancé — and also his professor.

Severus had begun receiving Regulus at his mansion, the Prince estate. There, Severus had agreed to guide him, training and pushing him through physical activities that left Regulus exhausted, though he never dared to complain. After all, it was the same training Bellatrix had endured at the Black mansion, and she had regularly undergone it — and had become extremely powerful thanks to that very training.

The headmaster raised his hand, asking for silence and ending the murmur before continuing:

"Well, I admit many things were far too extreme. However, it is better that we hear what he has to say at his trial tomorrow. The world will know whether Severus is a villain... or a hero."

Once again, the hall exploded with questions and bewildered looks, with the word hero echoing from the headmaster’s own lips.

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