Snape, the Sunshine of Hogwarts

Chapter 8 Choice

"What right do you have to tell him this! This is something he shouldn't know at all! What does this have to do with you?!"

"You despicable thief!! You shameless robber!!!"

The roars emanating from within his body continued to resound.

Severus, however, seemed to have unilaterally silenced Snape the Ghost, his expression remaining unchanged throughout, his gaze fixed on Harry fleeing backward in the heavy rain.

The boy, who was soaked to the bone, finally got up from the ground again.

He looked at Severus in fear, then turned and started running outside, not even bothering with the suitcase that had fallen to the ground!

At this moment, he was no longer as relaxed as he had been when he was freed from the Dursleys' house. His body was trembling, and his only thought was to escape!

Run back through this alley, through this cold, heavy rain!

However, before he could even take two steps, Severus's voice seemed to rise from the depths of his heart and echoed in his ears.

“I begged that devil to spare your mother, and he agreed.”

"And he did intend to do so, but your mother was determined to protect you and was ultimately killed by him."

“Lily was afraid of nothing for you, and now you've only met one of my enemies, yet all you have the courage to do is run away, Harry?”

After Severus's voice faded, the boy's running figure gradually came to a stop in the heavy rain.

He was panting heavily, and turned around, rain running down his hair and onto his face.

His glasses were also covered in raindrops, so he could only vaguely make out the dark figure at the end of the alley.

The gloomy sky turned as dark as dusk, and the streetlights that should have been on remained off for a long time, whether due to years of disrepair or some other reason.

"Are you here to kill me in place of that demon?!"

Harry's hateful shout pierced through the rain.

"Stop yelling, stop yelling! Haven't you noticed how naive your goddess's son is? He believes everything I say. A little provocation and he's hooked. If I really came to kill him, he'd be finished."

Severus's body was in chaos, with his grumbling voices mingling with the roars of Ghost Snape, making it sound like he was in a DJ club.

But despite the complaints, Severus certainly wouldn't have said that in reality.

He remained standing still, without moving. Although there was no need for him to use an umbrella, he still held up that black umbrella and stood upright.

The damp wind blew up Severus's short ponytail, and with each breath he could smell the fresh earthy scent in the air.

"kill you?"

“If I really wanted to kill you, I could have done it at your aunt’s house. There was no need to go to the trouble of bringing you here.”

Severus said calmly.

Harry took off his glasses and collapsed to the ground, feeling as if a huge rock was pressing down on his heart. It was so painful, and his nose stung as if he had been punched hard.

It felt like something was flowing from my eyes, but mixed with the rain, I couldn't tell if it was tears or not.

I can't even tell what my current emotion is.

The longing for her parents, the oppression of living in the Dursleys' house for the past eight years, and the hatred for the man in front of her who claims to be her enemy!

The black figure pierced through the rain and slowly approached him.

The umbrella enveloped Harry again, keeping the cold raindrops out of the space.

"You are her son. It was the magic she cast on you that killed that evil lord. You are the savior of the magic world and a hero in the eyes of all wizards."

"But now you are just living in that narrow closet crawling with spiders, being scolded, discriminated against, and abused by your aunt's family."

"She illuminated my path. I am sorry to her, and only to her. If I want to make up for the mistake that no one has the right to forgive, I can only make amends by doing it to you."

Harry looked up in surprise and saw the man looking down at him from under the umbrella.

Severus met his eyes, which were just like his mother's.

At that moment, Snape the Ghost suddenly fell silent, as quiet as a ghost.

"You know nothing about the wizarding world, and you know nothing about your enemies, Harry Potter."

"But of course you can wait until you're 11, until the owl flies in and you receive your Hogwarts acceptance letter, and then you can learn about that world and everything that happened."

"But now, an opportunity is in front of you."

Severus drew his wand and tapped it lightly on Harry's glasses. The glasses, whose broken ends had been sealed with tape, were instantly restored to their original state. Then, with a casual wave of his hand at Harry, the drenched Harry was transformed back into his clean and refreshed self in the next second!

The wonder of magic was on full display before this 9-year-old boy; a scene that would normally only appear in fairy tales was now unfolding in real life.

The spellcaster who had done all this, Severus, simply extended one of his hands to Harry with a calm expression.

"Come with me."

"I will be your teacher before you enter Hogwarts. I will take you to see the colorful wizarding world and meet all kinds of wizards."

"I will teach you everything I know, potions, spells, transfiguration and even the dark arts."

"And if one day you grow up to be a truly great, true savior, then point your wand at me."

"Use all the methods I taught you, use all your strength, and kill me!"

"Do you have the guts?"

"Lily Evans and James Potter's son—"

"Harry Potter."

Seeing the hand reaching out to him, Harry Potter gritted his teeth and stared intently at Severus.

He first lowered his head, wiped away his tears with his sleeve, and then grabbed Severus's hand without hesitation and stood up from the ground.

"I'll go with you!"

Severus smiled and waved his wand behind him. The black umbrella that Harry had thrown to the ground flew over and landed in Harry's hands once again.

"Wise choice."

After saying that, he did the same thing as before, no longer caring about Harry's current emotions or appearance, and strode towards Surrey Station.

"From now on, don't call me Mr. Snape, call me teacher."

Harry gripped the umbrella handle tightly, sniffed, took a deep breath, and then jogged off to catch up with Severus, his magic teacher.

The two figures, one tall and one short, gradually disappeared into the rain.

The heavy rain did not stop because of their departure, and the wind howled as the two figures completely disappeared.

The streetlights that had remained dark suddenly lit up one by one!

The tabby cat, which had been hiding in the shadows to avoid the rain, slowly emerged, accompanied by an old man with a white beard wearing strange crescent-shaped glasses.

“I don’t understand why you’re stopping me, Dumbledore! He’s too young; he shouldn’t know these things at this age!”

The tabby cat twisted for a moment, and Minerva McGonagall, the elderly witch who was the Professor of Transfiguration at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the Head of Gryffindor, appeared on the spot!

Chapter 9 Fame

When McGonagall questioned him, Dumbledore did not immediately offer any explanation.

He simply gazed in the direction where Severus and Harry had gone, remaining silent for a long time before finally speaking.

“Often, we do have to consider age and take children’s feelings into account, but in some cases, this does not apply to a very small number of people.”

“Harry Potter was an extraordinary child, and after experiencing those things, his future was destined to be extraordinary.”

"So maybe it's not a bad thing for him to know some things earlier?"

McGonagall clearly didn't agree with Dumbledore's explanation; her face was tense.

“But you definitely saw it before I did—that Snape was suspicious! This is something he wouldn’t do, and something he wouldn’t say!”

"We have absolutely no idea who he is, or where Snape, whom we used to know, has gone! To just hand Harry over to him like this is too risky, too uncertain!"

"Sometimes, uncertainty is better than certainty, who knows?"

Dumbledore's blue eyes were so deep that McGonagall had no way of knowing what he was thinking.

"As for who Severus Snape is now, and what his purpose is, haven't we just seen and heard what he's planning to do?"

McGonagall shook her head.

That's just his side of the story!

"That's right. When we want to see a person clearly, we shouldn't focus too much on what they say, but rather on what they do."

After Dumbledore finished speaking, he paused for a moment, then raised his right hand.

In the rain-soaked clouds, a furtive owl flew down from a distant rooftop, circled above the two men, and finally landed on Dumbledore's arm.

It looked quite soaked from the heavy rain, but the parchment in its paws was well protected.

Dumbledore opened the letter that had been sent out after Severus picked Harry up from his aunt's house; it was clearly a report to Hogwarts.

The letter was brief, simply stating that he had successfully obtained permission from Harry's guardian and Harry himself to take him out.

He formally requested a long leave of absence from Dumbledore in writing.

At least when Hogwarts reopens in September this year, he will be temporarily unable to return to his positions as Potions Professor and Head of Slytherin. Dumbledore should find someone else suitable.

This is a very thorough and impeccable reporting letter.

Taking the quill that had somehow appeared in his hand, Dumbledore gently shook the parchment, erasing the words that Severus had written on it.

"The magical world has been quite peaceful these past few years, but there have been some minor incidents," the old man with a sweet tooth muttered.

Subsequently, the greatest headmaster in Hogwarts history, under the cover of rain, wrote a reply to the Slytherin headmaster who had abducted the savior of the wizarding world and was planning to skip work and run away.

The reply was short; the quill pen danced across the parchment, and raindrops dodged above it.

Soon, Dumbledore slipped the completed reply into the owl's claws.

As usual, the Hogwarts communal owl saluted with its wings before taking flight under the watchful eyes of Dumbledore and McGonagall.

London, Charles Cross Road.

This normally bustling street was almost deserted due to the heavy rain.

When the two black umbrellas, one large and one small, came to the side of the road, Harry could see three strange people dressed similarly to Severus talking under the awning that extended outwards from the shop.

Those people were chatting and laughing, but when someone saw the two of them walking over, their smiles immediately disappeared.

One of them stared at Severus for a long time before recognizing the man with the slicked-back hair and neat ponytail. He then nudged his two companions with his elbow.

"Professor Snape."

Someone bowed their head and addressed him.

Upon hearing this address, Severus couldn't help but turn his head to look.

Those faces were not unfamiliar to him; they were Hogwarts students who had graduated just two years prior.

"Brown, Guerrero, and Smith? Since they've all graduated from Hogwarts, there's no need to call them professors anymore."

The three graduates were clearly stunned to hear his friendly reply with a smile, and that he still remembered their names.

Is this the Professor Snape they know?

But someone soon reacted.

“You have taught us for seven years, and no matter what, you will always be our professor.”

The young man, whose clothes and demeanor were quite good, said respectfully.

The other two, though they soon realized what was happening and agreed, couldn't help but mutter curses under their breath.

Shameless lackey, a sycophant who only knows how to say nice things!

Snape, as head of the house, is obviously biased towards students from his own house. You are a Slytherin graduate, so it's understandable that you say good things about us, but why do you have to include us?

Severus waved his hand, said nothing more, and simply called out before leading Harry into the middle of the street, to the Leaky Cauldron, a run-down pub that only wizards could see.

The three Hogwarts graduates exchanged knowing glances as they watched Harry's retreating figure alongside Severus.

They were all clearly curious about the young boy, but because of Severus's "reputation," none of them dared to ask him directly.

Harry, who had already taken off his large black-rimmed glasses and was being asked by Severus to wear contact lenses, and who had used a little trick to cover the lightning bolt scar on his forehead, was amazed by what had just happened.

It was only then that he vaguely understood the value of the position of Head of Slytherin House at Hogwarts.