#sirus

I’ve always known I wasn’t the daughter my fathers expected.

Sirius likes to joke that he imagined a miniature version of himself storming through the halls of Hogwarts, hexing bullies and challenging authority. Remus expected… well, calmness, I suppose. A quiet child who read books and mediated arguments and ate chocolate as a coping mechanism.

Instead, they got me a girl who didn’t quite fit anywhere. Too sharp-tongued for Dad (Remus) to understand, too reserved for Papa (Sirius) to relate to. I could duel decently, sure, but I never had Sirius’s charisma. I could read endlessly, but I lacked Remus’s gentleness. Instead, I had… precision. Obsessive focus. A mind that calmed only when measuring, mixing, isolating variables. Potions made sense in a way people didn’t.

Unfortunately, that meant I spent most of my time alone.

And even more unfortunately, it meant I ended up on Professor Snape’s radar.

He should have hated me. Truly. Papa and Dad were his old tormentors, and although they apologised in adulthood repeatedly, embarrassingly Snape had perfected the art of holding a grudge beyond mortal limits.

So the day he stopped mid-stride in the classroom, staring at the neat brewing notes I’d annotated in the margins of my textbook, I braced myself for a tirade.

Instead, he murmured, “Correct your heat by three degrees. Unless you want the cauldron to explode.”

I blinked. “Oh. Er...thank you, sir.”

His gaze flicked to me, sharp as a knife. “Don’t thank me. Just do it properly.”

But he’d said it like he couldn’t bear to see good work wasted not like he couldn’t bear me. And from then on, things changed.

Not obviously, of course. Merlin forbid Severus Snape express warmth. But he’d hover near my table longer than others. He’d mutter corrections. He’d mark my essays harshly but in the margins leave extra notes, the sort of feedback that implied he expected me to improve.

And I did improve.

Fast.

It wasn’t until a Friday afternoon in late October that I realised it was more than that that he saw something in me he shouldn’t have been able to stomach.

The class was attempting an advanced Shrivelfig Restorative. Most of my classmates were complaining loudly, banging their cauldrons like it might magically help. Snape was already in a foul mood after finding Goyle attempting to peel a shrivelfig with his wand like a potato peeler.

Typical Gryffindor prejudice meant no one wanted to pair with the daughter of Sirius Black and Remus Lupin - the legends. The infamous rule-breakers. The Gryffindor golden couple.

So I brewed alone, as always.

“Stir anti-clockwise. And if you add the ginger root now, you’ll curdle the base,” Snape muttered behind me, low enough that the others wouldn’t hear.

I froze mid-reach. “Sorry, sir.”

“Don’t apologise,” he hissed. “Just think.”

There was something in his tone frustrated, yes, but not with me. With the world, maybe. With the fact that a student who should’ve been praised for her work was instead shunned because of her surname.

I changed the order of ingredients, and Snape lingered. Far too long.

After class, he said sharply “Stay behind.”

A ripple of whispers followed. The only time Snape ever made you stay behind was to give you detention or to terrify you into submission.

When the door shut and the dungeon quieted, he folded his arms. “You have a talent,” he said simply. “A raw one.”

I blinked. That… that was the closest thing to praise I’d ever heard from him.

“Most of your classmates could spend seven years here and never produce a brew like yours after two minutes of concentration.”

My cheeks warmed. “Thank you, sir.”

He stared at me for a long moment, his expression twisting like it physically pained him. “I should despise you,” he said softly.

The words punched the air out of me.

“And yet,” he continued, voice rough, “I cannot.”

He didn’t explain. Didn’t need to. I knew exactly why. I had my father’s dark hair and my dad’s soft eyes the perfect blend of the two men who’d tormented him in school.

But in my posture, in my work, in my isolation I was him.

“Do you know why they bullied me?” he asked suddenly.

I hesitated. “Because they were stupid teenage boys?”

A huff - nearly a laugh. “Correct, but not the whole picture.” His gaze hardened. “They didn’t like what they saw. Difference. Intelligence. Vulnerability. Anything they perceived as weakness.”

I swallowed. “They love me,” I whispered. “They’re good fathers.”

“I never said they weren’t.” His tone softened for a rare moment. “But they cannot understand what it is to be the outcast. To be belittled for what you are rather than anything you’ve done.”

My throat tightened. He could see right through me.

“You’re not like them,” he said quietly. “You resemble them, certainly. But you… you are like me.”

I didn’t know whether to feel honoured or cursed.

It only worsened from there between me and my classmates. Rumours spread that Snape favoured me, which meant they despised me more. My potions were “too good”, so obviously I was cheating. My essays were “too advanced”, so clearly Snape was doing them for me.

Papa told me to hex them. Dad told me to ignore them. Neither helped.

On a particularly grim Thursday, someone slipped a cartoon under my cauldron: a werewolf and a mangy dog laughing while a greasy bat cowered. Underneath, scribbled in cruel handwriting: Like father, like daughter.

I folded it in half before Snape could see but his eyes flicked to it anyway.

“Hand it over,” he ordered.

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Miss Black.”

The dungeon silenced. My classmates stared, waiting for a show.

My cheeks burned. “Sir, it’s fine. Please.”

He held out his hand.

I gave it to him.

His eyes scanned the drawing, and something terrible flickered across his face. Not embarrassment. Not anger.

Recognition.

He’d been here before.

He looked up, jaw tight. “Class dismissed.”

A collective gasp.

“But sir”

“OUT!”

They fled.

When the door slammed behind the last straggler, he turned to me with a strange expression tight, wary. “I will handle this.”

“No,” I said quickly. “Please don’t. It’ll only make things worse.”

He paused. “This is not acceptable.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“And you shouldn’t have.”

His voice cracked on the last word barely, but I heard it. I’d never imagined Severus Snape capable of cracking on anything.

He set the paper down carefully, like it was highly volatile.

“You are not them,” he whispered. “Not your fathers. Not their sins. And you do not deserve their shadows.”

My throat tightened. “Neither did you.”

His breath caught.

For a moment, we simply looked at each other two people from opposite worlds, tied by something neither of us had asked for.

“I want to help you,” he said finally. “If you will allow it.”

I nodded. “I’d like that, sir.”

Something eased in his posture barely perceptible, but there.

He cleared his throat. “Detention. Saturdays. Extra lessons. If anyone asks, you are dreadful at theory.”

I snorted. “Right. Because you famously provide remedial lessons to students you hate.”

His glare almost looked amused. “Detention,” he repeated, but with none of the usual venom. “Don’t be late.”

My fathers were… troubled when they found out.

They’d asked how school was going, and I stupidly, honestly told them.

“You’re spending extra time with Snape?” Papa blurted. “Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Voluntarily?” Dad asked, brows knitting.

“Yes.”

They looked at each other like I’d announced I’d joined a cult.

“That man” Papa began.

“Is trying to help me,” I cut in.

Papa froze mid-rant. Dad blinked in confusion.

“He sees things in me that other people don’t.”

“That’s precisely what concerns us,” Papa muttered.

Reaching across the table, Dad covered my hand gently. “Sweetheart… he wasn’t kind to us when we were young.”

“And you weren’t kind to him either,” I shot back.

They both winced.

It wasn’t fair of me to say it so brutally, but I couldn’t help it. They would never fully understand what it meant to be on the other side of the laughter.

“I’m not saying he hasn’t changed,” Dad said softly. “But he is… difficult.”

“So am I,” I said.

Papa stared at me then, like he was seeing something he always missed before. “You’re nothing like him,” he said… but doubt cracked through the conviction.

“Maybe I am,” I whispered. “Maybe that’s not a bad thing.”

He flinched. Dad inhaled sharply. Neither argued.

They didn’t understand, but at least they didn’t try to stop me.

Saturday came, and with it my first “detention”.

Snape didn’t scold. Didn’t sneer. Didn’t treat me like my father’s daughter.

He simply handed me a list of advanced brews and said, “You’re capable of these. Let’s begin.”

The “detentions” became the best part of my week.

We brewed potions too complex for the curriculum. He taught me things most students didn’t learn until N.E.W.T. preparation sometimes not even then. He corrected me gently, which I suspected nearly killed him. He muttered sarcastic comments about incompetent colleagues, which made me choke back laughter.

And sometimes… he talked.

Not much. Never more than a few sentences. But enough.

He told me about creating spells as a student. About being mocked for it. About how mastery meant safety until it didn’t.

He never spoke of my fathers unless I asked, and even then only briefly.

“They were brilliant,” he admitted once, stirring a Calming Draught. “And cruel. Both can coexist.”

“Do you think I’ll end up like them?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No. You are already so very different. You think before you act. You feel deeply. And you see more than they ever did.”

I looked down at my simmering cauldron. “Do you wish they’d treated you differently?”

He paused, then said quietly, “I wish I’d had one friend who understood me. It would have changed everything.”

I swallowed. “You do now.”

He didn’t answer just adjusted my stirring pattern, his fingers brushing mine.

But I saw the acknowledgement in his eyes.

By spring, rumours had shifted. Not that I was cheating but worse. That I was Snape’s pet. Snape’s favourite. Snape’s secret weapon.

People avoided me like I was cursed.

One afternoon, I found a scribble on my dormitory door: Snivellus Jr.

I ripped it off and shoved it in my pocket.

When I reached his classroom, he took one look at me and knew.

“Who,” he said dangerously

“No one.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Someone,” I admitted, “but I don’t want to talk about it.”

He stared a moment longer, then said quietly, “You understand that none of this is your fault?”

I nodded, even though sometimes I didn’t believe it.

“And you understand,” he added, “that you are not alone?”

This time, my throat closed so tightly I couldn’t speak. I just nodded again.

“Good,” he said, voice softer than I’d ever heard. “Because I refuse to watch you become the version of myself I can never undo.”

My chest ached.

He wasn’t trying to fix me. He was trying to save me.

Near the end of the year, after our last extra lesson, he stopped me at the door.

“Miss Black,” he said, clearing his throat as if the words were difficult, “I expect you to surpass me one day.”

I stared. “Sir?”

“You have the talent,” he said. “More importantly the discipline. Use it.”

“I will.”

“And…” His gaze flicked away, a rare vulnerability cracking through. “If you ever need guidance academic or otherwise you may come to me.”

Emotion surged unexpectedly. “Thank you, sir.”

He nodded stiffly, as though worried he’d done something dreadfully improper.

I stepped closer. “You were right, you know.”

“About what?”

“You were the first person who really saw me.”

His face shifted the faintest, briefest flicker of pain and pride.

“I see too much,” he murmured.