The First Good Thing
Severus Snape knew that nothing good would ever happen to him. For starters, he survived the war. How? He did not want to know. He wished that he would have died. He was suppose to die. So even though the war was still going on around him...he ran away.
Some may say that was a coward’s move. He is not a coward, but what could a barely alive man contribute to the war? The Dark Lord believed him to be dead and he wanted it to stay that way. No. He was finally going to think about himself and leave behind the wizarding world. And that’s exactly what he did.
~~~
He was not sure where he ended up and he did not care. For the first few months he worked on establishing a new identity, not like it would matter, seeing as he was living in a muggle village. So far, he has not seen a sign of magic, which pleased him greatly. He lived in a small cottage on the outskirts of town, where nobody bothered him. He worked at a small bookstore as an inventory specialist in the village. It wasn’t his ideal job, but he at least didn’t have to deal with people.
Even though he wanted to escape from the magical world, there was a small part of him that couldn’t. He still used his wand for things around the house and he occasionally brewed himself potions (he would never stop that) but he wanted nothing to do with the magical community. Even so, he signed himself up for the Daily Prophet. He needed to know that Harry Potter had won and that his sacrifices weren’t for nothing. What he didn’t expect though, was a whole edition basically devoted to him.
The Daily Prophet: Severus Snape a Villian or a Hero
Severus Snape the long-time potions master at Hogwarts School of Witcraft and Wizardry got his start when he was twenty-one, after renouncing his ways of being a Death Eater, has been declared a hero by The Boy Who Lived.
Harry Potter recounts how Professor Snape was working as a spy for Albus Dumbledore:
“Snape was working for Dumbledore this entire time. Upon Dumbledore’s request Snape was to be the one to kill Dumbledore..."
Severus slams the newspaper onto the table. He could not bring himself to read and relive some of the worst moments of his life. Harry Potter had shared the memories he had taken from Severus in the Shrieking Shack. He was declared a war hero, Severus thought he was far from that. He was extremely glad that he was never going to have contact with the wizarding world again, seeing as The Daily Prophet wrote an entire biography on his life, from the time he started school to the time of his supposed death.
The strangest thing was that no one made mention of the fact that his body was missing. Harry Potter saw him die. There should be a body. All Severus could wonder is why whoever saved him didn’t come forward. Don’t they at least want a ‘thank you’?
Reading that edition of the Daily Prophet put Severus into a worse mood than he already was. He didn’t want his whole life put on display for every witch and wizard to read about, even if he was suppose to be dead. He spent his entire adult life keeping secrets and hiding from everybody who knew him and now, the whole world knows his life story.
He tried to put these thoughts out of his mind as he made his way into the village to the bookstore. The walk seemed so much longer as the thoughts of the Daily Prophet flooded his mind. So much so that he found himself on the ground. Next to him was a small brunette woman who immediately went to apologize but Severus held his hand up, effectively stopping the woman from saying anything. Severus didn’t care for apologies. All he knew was that she should’ve been paying closer attention to where she was walking.
“Next time,” Severus’s voice is low, a scowl on his face, “watch where you’re going.”
“Me?!? How about you! You walked right into me!” The woman shouts at him as he walks away from her, not even bothering to see if she’s okay.
Severus knew that he could change everything about himself, seeing as nobody here knew him. He didn’t have to be a cold asshole that everybody hates but he doesn’t want to. He was fine with living the rest of his life in solitude. He was fine living the rest of his life without letting anybody into his life. It was what he was best at. Although, it seemed that the universe had other plans for him.