The basic necessities
Diagon Alley was more crowded than Severus expected. Then again the war had not truly started in the magical world. It was still in its infancy with no outright death eater attacks yet. Those would not begin until summer next year. He had decided to start off by first getting the ingredients he needed to brew his bruise salve then decide on housing. He could go to slug and jiggers but their ingredients were not the quality products they were pricing them at. If he went down knockturn alley he could get a much better supply and a much better price. His current appearance should discourage any pickpockets they would assume he'd already been robbed looking like that midday.
His first choice in potions supply was not where it would be in 22 years time but across the street from it's would be storefront was a promising sign. "Rooms for rent" Entering the frankly dilapidated building he followed the signs to a dingy door. Severus knocked.
"What do you want" came a gruff voice from inside before the door opened revealing a grimy individual.
"I saw the sign for rent" Severus monotonously stated. "How much for two months and how big? Does it have a bathroom and kitchen?" The man smiled which did nothing to improve his appearance. He took the boy down the hall to an equally grimy door paused flipping through a key loop til apparently finding the right one and opening the door. The room could use a good clean but was of decent size and contained a kitchen and a bathroom. The kitchen may be centuries out of date and the bathroom may have mold growing in the corner but it was nothing a good Scourgify or cleaning charm couldn't fix. "Can I enlarge the room?"
The man looked at Severus for a second before saying "You can but only a small amount or it will compromise the rest of the apartment complex. You're powerful enough to cast that and you want to live here?" The condescending sneer at the end was impossible to miss but Severus ignored the statement not wanting to get into power levels. "How much for 2 months starting today?"
The man wrung his hands looking for all the world a greedy man "5 galleons." Severus' eyes bulged and his mouth almost fell open. How could it be so little he had over a hundred galleons on him. A good cauldron cost 5 galleons. The man misinterpreting his look hastily stammered "4 galleons" Severus concealed his emotions, sliding into his pureblood mask, and stuck out his hand "4 galleons and I have this room undisturbed until September 4th and we have a deal." The man smiled a toothy grin and shook his hand. Severus took out his pouch and pulled out 4 galleons holding them where the man could see. "Oath or contract?" The man grimaced but walked down the hall coming back with a lease agreement which Severus went over filling in the relevant dates of occupancy and amount of payment. Signing the document he turned it over to the man who signed his signature. Severus duplicated the form and passed the original plus the money over to the man. Handing the key over, the man turned and left him behind in his new accommodations.
Severus turned to face the room. The nice thing about being in knockturn alley was with the way the trace worked being in a magical area heavily saturated in ambient magic and other witches and wizards casting all around him he could use his own wand to cast spells without the ministry charging him for underage magic. That was a great thing because while his mom's wand worked, casting with it did not create as strong of spells as his own wand did.
Two hours later he had finally finished making the space livable and safe. Casting the wards to protect it from being broken into took over an hour in and of itself especially since he used spells not yet invented in this time. The cleaning also took longer than expected. It took several overpowered Scourgifies to get the bathroom mold free. Sitting down he felt his stomach growl. His morning toast would be long since digested by now. But before getting food he needed to do one last thing. While knockturn may be great for magic use it was not by any stretch safe. A little blood magic on his mom's extension charmed money pouch would go a long way. Blood magic was technically illegal but it did not harm anyone, not even the caster. All he had to do was put a droplet of his blood on the interior and chant the phrase and it was done. Now no one could get anything he put in the bag out of the bag except him. One spell done the second would ensure the bag would return to his person when not being within 6 feet of his magical signature longer than 30 minutes. It was a commonly offered service at Gringotts that he didn't learn how to cast until his fifth year of teaching when Filius showed it to him in exchange for a favor. He was now ready to enter knockturn in search of food.
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The Lovebite was where he remembered it being. Despite its vampire ownership their food was divine and reasonably priced. Plus vampires were only dangerous if they didn't get enough blood to drink so going to a place that regularly sold blood meant the chance of any kind of frenzy happening in or if it did occur harming a not bleeding person meant in his current open wound free state it was a perfectly safe dining experience.
Akeldama was behind the bar looking exactly the same as she would in two decades. He saddled up to the bar positioning himself so he was sat at the end of the bar and if he turned his stool 90 degrees to the bar he would have the wall to his back bar to his right and everyone else to his left. She smiled at him "What can I get you, wizard" Severus ordered his usual "bangers and mash" put 1 galleon down. She raised her eyebrows, took the coin and ordered walking away. Pulling out his journal Severus decided to plan while waiting for his food.
He already decided he didn't want to join either the light side or the dark side but was it possible for him to stay neutral? He had his ticket out but that depended on Lord Prince accepting him as heir. To be fair the chances of that happening were high since he was named heir last time despite never meeting him. What he needed to decide was what he wanted in life. He had spent so much of his life being pulled this way and that by his two masters never truly living for himself that he had forgotten who he was. What he had dreamed of. Without Dumbledore's pressure he had wanted to open his own apothecary and potions ordering service tutoring on the side. While he was an awful teacher, too strict and stressed preventing deaths in his classroom he was an excellent tutor. There was a reason his slytherins’ did so well on their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s his biweekly one on one tutoring session vastly improved their grades. He never wanted to teach full time but to publish and patent his works that would be a dream.
Last time Dumbledore and mostly Potter's legacy prevented him from publishing any potions discoveries under his own name. Potter’s family owning the only British based potion academic journal and his order to ban him from it before becoming a silver cauldron meant he could never publish anything and Dumbledore's meddling meant he could never patent anything that might jeopardize his position as a spy which basically meant all his potions. But at this point in time James wasn't in charge of the publishing company and Dumbledore couldn't block his potions submissions. All he needed was a title that would allow him to submit things before James graduated. In order to submit things you needed to be registered as at least an apprentice, pewter cauldron, with the potions guild. He was the youngest potions master ever while he might not have many potions to his name he did know how to submit potions for review if he had an apprenticeship code to submit them under. All he needed was an apprenticeship status.
Now that he was thinking about it he really did give up his whole life to protect Lily’s son. Why was he so dedicated to her? She abandoned him halfway through a sexual assault and never forgave him going so far as to date his chief bully. Why was he so attached to her and why now that he was in the past where he could actually do something to save her did he feel no desire to. He spent so much of his life being tortured and used for someone he now felt no inclination to help. Maybe it was because he felt he had repented enough. He did everything he could do for her boy and now in this time he hadn't actually done anything to her besides use a slur against her once. He had also begged for forgiveness which she chose to never give. In his previous life he always denied the fact that she could have been using him to appear to fit into magical society and dropping him once she was firmly established and their views no longer aligned. They rarely got in fights while friends but to date, Lily even when she was in the wrong had never apologized. He was always the one who apologized, always the one desperate for her attention. Now without the guilt and vows to cloud his mind and years as a head of house to slytherin he could see how dependent and unhealthy their relationship had been. His relationship with the Malfoy's may have been transactional and they may have lured him into Voldemort's service but he didn't ever make him apologize for something not his fault. Malfoy always respected him and owned up to any grievances he caused. Lucius, as much of a pureblood bigot as he was, had been a better friend to Severus than Lily had.
What she had over Malfoy was their childhood connection and her kindness towards an injured boy. Her help so many times as a child and a place of safety being the one who allowed him to talk and explain his love of magic. Planning and debating improving potions and defense strategies. She was a safe place which just made her abandoning him in a time of duress, for a slur, hurt that much more. He would not spend this life trying to save her. At this point in his life she did not need him to save her. She was swallowing the light side's propaganda and believing all things dark are evil. He was dark. Some dark people were evil but that didn't mean all those light weren't evil or all dark creatures were evil. Dumbledore trying to send all the Slytherins in abusive homes back was evil. Moody attacking dark families in their homes during "raids”, sometimes irreparably, was evil. Both sides had evil. Akeldama, the owner of this bar, was dark. She was not evil. She was just making a living. The world was not light or dark. It was full of grays!
Even if he successfully became the Prince heir that would not be enough to protect him from the upcoming conflict or the marauders. It would not protect him from James banning him from being able to publish his findings on potion ingredient reactions. Being a Prince would allow him to get patents but Dumbledore and Potter had enough power to stop them being published and thus used in the UK. Did he need to stay in the UK? Did he need to stay Severus Snape when he became a Prince heir? His Grandfather will probably want him to change his last name. Could he change his whole name? That would make everything accomplished as Severus Snape hard to take credit for. However, changing his name and becoming a new person sounded amazing. He could erase his past and be a Prince.
"15 Sickles and 24 knuts is your change" Akeldama said setting his food and change in front of him. Severus looked at the food it smelled exactly like he remembered it taking a bite he couldn't help but smile. It was just as soothing as always. He started to eat with gusto only stopping after eating half way through finishing when his eye caught other patrons looking at the money by his plate. Putting the money away he smiled at the number of coins he was putting away. 20 years from now this same meal would cost a little more than twice as much due to inflation. Also now he had some smaller denomination coins than galleons. His mothers stash of magical money was going to stretch further than he initially thought. It had more buying power.
With his stomach full Severus went to plan out his life. The Princes may have a British lordship and sit on the wizengamot but they did not live in Britain. Their estate was on Somers Isles. They moved their estate there in the mid 1600s. Thus Prince children traditionally went to either Hogwarts or Inventus Bermuda's small magic school which famously produced inventors, medi wizards/witches, curse breakers, potion masters, potioneers and Unspeakables or their equivalent. His mother chose Hogwarts because she loved gobstones and Hogwarts had a gobstone team while Inventus did not. He chose Hogwarts because of his mother's stories of it and because of Lily.
Now the only one who could transfer him was a legal guardian and his father certainly would not go through all that paperwork when it involved so many unnatural people as he would say. If Severus became a Prince he could transfer but most of their interesting classes started in third year and he couldn't take them as a sixth year transfer.
Then it hit him. If accepting the Prince heirship meant a new identity. A new him then why did he have to start his new identity at the same age as getting dropped into the past as? A new name would involve piles of paperwork to get his O.W.L. results switched under. He was already going to have to complete school all over again. Why not make himself a little younger and take some new classes along with the core subjects. Why confine himself to Britain his ancestors had the right idea the colonies had nicer weather and maybe even nicer people. Somers Isles were not on the precipice of war. He could kill off his Severus Snape identity and start an entire new life. Leave all that baggage behind. All those labels behind. He could learn to create not mimic. If he had time he could give Severus Snape some kind of legacy to honor his past life and then be reborn anew! His mother named him Severus Tobias Snape. His new identity could be twirling the quill Severus decided. His new identity if accepted as Prince heir would be Septimius [insert his grandfathers first name] Prince. Septimius in honor of the Roman emperor his mom initially named him after. He still wanted to be a founder and pioneer like his mom said the name would make him. Even now 22 years later her death still hurt. She died 3 months ago. His father may not have notified him of her death until he arrived home that summer. No, this summer but whether it be 3 months or 22 years he still sometimes missed her. She instilled his love of potions and magic. She was the only reason he ever came home. Why couldn't he have been sent back a year or even 4 months earlier? Why that day? Why when everyone who had had familial love for him were unreachable. Why did it send him back to this turning point in his life and not some other one. While at least he was not marked yet. Now thinking about it, this was the only point in his life in which he had no tethers to Britain, no promises, vows, or relationships forcing him to stay. This week was the only week in his life where after considering leaving Britain he would have nothing convincing him to stay. Maybe whatever gave him this second chance wanted him to leave behind Britain. Leave behind the British magical world which demanded so much from him without ever giving him protection.
"Mrs" he asked. She turned to him in the lull of customers. "I was wondering if you had any type of thing where I could get a box that delivers me meals at appointed times which I could pay for in advance?" He knew in the future they did. He did not know if they did now or if it was a later creation.
"Yes, lad we do for 1 galleon 16 sickles and 28 knuts. We can give you this wonderful lunch box. It will last 3 months after that you will have to get the charm refreshed. Every day during those months at 6 am a card will come in asking what meals you would like offering 3 choices for each meal of the day you fill it out, close the box, tap it with you wand, and we fill the order. If we don't receive the paper slip by 10am or you select no meals we will not send meals over. You can choose only to get breakfast or only to get lunch. Or to only get dinner and lunch any combination of the three meals. Food will arrive for breakfast 30 minutes after receiving the slip for lunch at noon or 1 depending on which you circle and for diner 5, 6 or 7 depending on which you circle. The cost is a flat fee." It was expensive but totally worth it because he would not need to worry about cooking or buying his meals. "Sign me up!" She smiled and brought him to the till. Food and housing accomplished! He didn't need Malfoy.