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Cherry and Chocolate by AidaLuthien

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Severus Snape avoided Diagon Alley out of habit. He had never liked crowds, and he certainly didn’t like them now, after he had been publicly outed as a Death Eater and spy after the war. He preferred to gather his Potions ingredients himself when he could. He could buy most other things in Hogsmeade, during a weekend when the students were not allowed to go to the village.

In short, there were very few reasons for Severus to be in Diagon Alley at all. And so, Severus was in a particularly poor mood when he needed to go to Gringott’s in the middle of August, right before the school term was supposed to begin.

Severus brushed the ashes from his robes as he stepped out of the fire. The Leaky Cauldron was busy. The upstairs rooms sounded as if they were full. More patrons were entering from the door to the Muggle world. The fire roared again as more people entered via Floo.

–Snape,” Tom said, instead of a greeting. He nodded back. It was never wise to be on the wrong side of a barman. He had spent enough time drinking at the Leaky Cauldron to know that he had to stay on Tom’s good side if he wanted to continue to be able to drink here comfortably. He ignored the other patrons and went straight to the back. He tapped on the appropriate brick with his wand and waited for the alley to open.

Diagon Alley was filled with Hogwarts students and parents. He repressed a shudder. So many children. He noticed a few Durmstrang and Beauxbatons robes in the mix. Foreign wizards visiting Britain or British wizards sending their children to schools abroad? Lucius was considering sending his son to Durmstrang and, some of the other more conservative pure-blood families still did.

Severus walked briskly through the alley to the bank. He nodded to some of the Slytherin students, but ignored all the others.

As he passed Madam Malkin’s, a Muggle family stepped out. The little girl had just gotten her robes. She was wearing them on top of her jeans and trainers, like someone else he had once known. Her hair was a vibrant red and she was grinning from ear to ear as she skipped along between her parents. She must have been a first year: he didn’t recognize her. A white flower pin attempted to control some of her whirling hair. Severus didn’t look closely enough to see if her eyes were green. He couldn’t let his heart ache more than it already did.

She wouldn’t be in his House. Salazar Slytherin, as the Sorting Hat reminded everyone every year, prized pure blood in students of his house. A Muggle-born Slytherin was a rare event, though he had heard of them and half-bloods like himself were more common than anyone wanted to admit. Sufficient ambition was sometimes enough to overcome a deficiency in blood, but not often.

He shouldn’t care about her, this one random Muggle-born girl. Caring was a weakness that he couldn’t afford. The Dark Lord was long defeated, but he had maintained his wartime habits. He had heard the prophecy. He knew what was to come.

Unable to stop, he watched the family walk next door to Florean Fortescue’s. The girl turned and seemed to look right at him. Her eyes were green. A little more hazel than Lily’s, but the same almond shape. –Daisy,” her mother called. –Come along, dear.”

–Alright, mum,” she responded. She looked around, staring at everything in wonder for another few moments before running over, robes flapping behind her.

He forced himself to turn away. She wasn’t Lily. He couldn’t let himself think that she was... even if she was also named after a flower, even if the flower in her hair was a lily. If he squinted, she could have passed for Lily though. Not only did they look alike, Lily had acted the same way, her first time in Diagon Alley. She had looked in all the shops, and Mrs Evans had to continually call for her to come back to the group.

Severus walked into Gringott’s and presented his key to the officious goblin. As the cart took its winding journey down to the Prince vault, Severus reflected on his first trip to Diagon Alley.

It was July. He and Lily had conspired for their families to go to Diagon Alley together. First they had gone to Gringott’s. A Goblin had escorted him and Mum down to the family vault, while the Evans exchanged pound notes for Galleons up above. The trip had been immensely exciting, zooming around in the dark. He had enjoyed it immensely. He thought it was a bit like a theme park ride. He had tried in vain to describe it to Lily. –It was dark, and the cart just zoomed along. We went through all these twists and turns, it was amazing!”

Their next stop had been Madam Malkin’s and Lily had insisted on wearing her robes on top of her Muggle clothes. –But I want to see what I’ll look like in my uniform,” she said. When the Evans had pointed out that she had gotten fitted for her uniform and had seen what she looked like in them, she had replied, –I need to get used to wearing robes.” She had even worn the school uniform’s pointy hat. She had finally looked like the witch that he had always known that she was.

She had smiled and skipped just like that other girl. That was back when everything was good. The weather had even been agreeable. Not too hot, but warm enough that a cone of Florean Fortescue’s ice cream had been a perfect treat. They had exchanged licks of ice cream. It was the closest he had ever come to kissing her. The combination of chocolate and cherry would forever remind him of her.

The cart lurched to a stop. He got out and the goblin haughtily turned the key. Severus surveyed his vault unemotionally. It was mostly money, except for a few of his mother’s things that she had put down here, mostly before she had married his father, and that he hadn’t bothered to remove. He reached down and grabbed a few handfuls of Galleons and shoved them into a small sack. That would serve him for the term, probably even longer.

As he got back in the cart, and they zoomed off into the dark, his mind returned to that July day. Lily had insisted on buying more books than just what was on their required reading and had begged for a copy of Hogwarts: A History, among other books. He already had all the school books from his mother’s collection, and he preferred them, so they bought nothing from the bookstore. He had wanted to buy an owl, but they couldn’t afford to. They would both have to send letters home using the school owls.

While Lily had to be almost physically dragged away from the books, he had lingered at the Potions ingredients. His mother had indulgently purchased him a few extras, after extracting a promise that he would not use them without Professor Slughorn’s guidance and supervision.

After that, it had been the assorted miscellany. The parchment, quills and ink that Lily, as a Muggle-born didn’t own, and their telescopes for Astronomy.

Then finally, it was time to go to Ollivander’s to get their wands. He had been so excited to get his wand. He was going to be a real wizard at last. Unlike Lily, he hadn’t been a natural at wandless magic. He was finally going to be able to cast spells. As he got older, he worked hard to hone his skills at wandless magic. His talent with that branch of magic was due to hard work, not inherent skill.

Lily had gone first and it hadn’t taken Ollivander long to present her with a ‘swishy’ willow wand with a unicorn hair core. She had held the wand lightly like she was born to wield it, which he supposed she was. As she waved it through the air, brilliant rainbow sparkles trailed through the air.

He had taken a lot longer to get a wand. He was starting to think they would have to go through every wand in the store, though Ollivander had remained upbeat throughout the process. From what little he knew about wandlore, he had not been surprised that the one unicorn hair wand Ollivander had presented him with leaped from his hands. He would never be an innocent. An applewood wand had lit dangerously hot embers in the shop, and Ollivander had snatched that one away as well. After that he was just hoping to avoid setting the shop on fire. As the pile of rejected wands grew larger, he wondered what kind of wand would choose him. Eventually, he received a wand that felt right in his hands and gave off green sparks of light when he waved it. He still had that rigid, dragon heartstring, eleven inch, silver lime wand.

They had spent a few hours in Muggle London afterwards and the Evans had taken on the role of tour guide from his mother. Lily had kept the robes and hat on. She was a real witch now. The Muggles didn’t seem to notice their motley band: a family of four and a single mother with a son. The Evans had insisted on paying for lunch at a Muggle pub in London. They didn’t often have the money to go eat at restaurants, so he had enjoyed his fish and chips thoroughly. Even Petunia couldn’t ruin his good mood.

Then they had returned by Floo to Cokeworth and his father’s rage.

Severus closed his eyes, forcing that memory away. Besides, they had arrived at the surface. He stepped out, without thanking the goblin. He walked out of the bank into the streaming sunlight of day and tried to forget.