"—Call me a Mudblood? But you call everyone of my kind Mudblood, Severus. What makes me any different?"
Shi Lei blinked hard, catching sight of a girl with sparkling green eyes.
She shot him a scornful glance before turning and crawling through a hidden entrance.
A thick wooden panel swung shut in front of Shi Lei, sealing the passage.
On the panel, a plump woman yawned impatiently.
"Alright, alright, back to your dormitory," the Fat Lady mumbled, her voice heavy with sleep. "Students shouldn't be loitering in the corridors at this hour."
Wait, where am I?
A sudden, searing pain shot through Shi Lei's head, as if it were being cleaved in two.
His vision blurred, and he collapsed to his knees with a thud, elbows propped on the floor, trembling uncontrollably.
A torrent of chaotic memories surged through his mind: Spinner's End, Hogwarts, curses flying through the air, Lily Evans…
Fragmented images flashed like shattered puzzle pieces, unfamiliar yet eerily familiar, slicing through his mind like sharp blades, leaving him wracked with agony.
After what felt like an eternity, the pain began to subside. Shi Lei weakly lifted his head, finally grasping his situation—he had crossed over.
This was the Gryffindor Tower.
The girl who had just left was Lily Evans.
And he… he was now Severus Snape.
Sorting through the jumbled thoughts and merged memories, Shi Lei confirmed a devastating truth:
Just this afternoon, after the O.W.L. exams, in the wake of James Potter's humiliating taunts, he had uttered that unforgivable word to Lily.
Moments ago, he had been making a desperate attempt to explain, to salvage what was left.
But clearly, he had failed.
From this point onward, as the original story went, Severus Snape and Lily Evans would part ways forever.
"Lily…" Shi Lei whispered, his voice barely audible. "How did it come to this…?"
Two conflicting emotions clashed violently within him. Knowing how this story ended, he was seized by an urge to storm into the Gryffindor dormitory and explain everything to Lily.
But another voice warned him that doing so would only make things worse.
At that moment, the image of those bright green eyes grew hazy in his mind. He couldn't discern what he truly felt for Lily…
Was it love? He wasn't sure.
Was it longing? He didn't know.
The memories of the past felt so close, yet so distant…
Under the dim glow of the torches lining the corridor's stone walls, Shi Lei staggered toward the marble staircase.
Not long ago, he had been at home, gleefully playing Hogwarts Legacy.
He had only paused to put a few drops of eye solution in his dry eyes while his fifth-year transfer student roamed the map, hunting for spell targets.
He never could have imagined that, in the blink of an eye, he'd find himself in the summer of 1976 at Hogwarts.
Instinctively stepping over the vanishing stair, Shi Lei slumped onto the staircase, grappling with the flood of complex memories in his mind.
"It's been over a week since I called home… and that monthly report still isn't done… What happens now…?"
The oppressive silence weighed heavily on him.
"But, looking on the bright side…"
After what felt like ages, Shi Lei reached into his robes and drew out a wand crafted from ebony and dragon heartstring. With a gentle flick, a thin beam of light sparked from its tip.
"Magic."
Gazing at the flickering glow, Severus Snape murmured wearily, "I'm here now… so, from today onward, I am the new 'Prince.'"
"Nox."
The wand's light extinguished.
He rolled up his left sleeve to check his arm. Thankfully, there was no Dark Mark yet.
Snape descended deeper into the castle's underbelly, arriving at a bare, damp stone wall.
He paused, racking his brain, before recalling this week's new password: "Always Pure."
Always Pure?
Wasn't Tom Riddle a half-blood too?
Snape rolled his eyes at the blank wall.
Muttering the password, he watched as a hidden stone door in the wall slid open.
He followed the tapestried spiral staircase downward.
The Slytherin common room was a long, low-ceilinged dungeon.
Its walls and ceiling were made of rough stone, and round, greenish lamps hung from chains on the ceiling.
Even in summer, the dungeon retained a chill.
Before him, a fire crackled beneath an intricately carved mantelpiece.
The warm red glow of the fire and the green light of the lamps illuminated a few Slytherin students lounging in ornate armchairs.
Aside from a handful of younger students, Snape spotted one of his dormmates—Patrick Abbott.
Abbott sat alone, engrossed in a thick, leather-bound copy of Advanced Runic Translation under the lamplight.
He had always distanced himself from their other two dormmates—Mulciber and Avery—and their so-called humor targeting Muggle-born witches and wizards, which he openly despised.
By extension, Abbott had never shown Snape much warmth either.
As a pure-blood Slytherin from one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight families, Abbott's attitude was unusually principled.
Ignoring the curious glances from others, Snape headed toward the boys' dormitory and slipped into the bathroom.
The silver lamps in the bathroom cast an inky green glow.
The sound of lake water lapped gently against the window at the far end, occasionally disturbed by the passing shadow of some massive creature.
Snape studied his "new face" in the mirror, muttering under his breath, "How is this 'black'? Why'd they cast a Black actor for this?
"And as much as James is a prat, you can't just accuse him of being a racist…"
The figure in the mirror was thin but wiry, passably strong.
His complexion was pallid, like a plant grown in perpetual darkness.
His black hair hung straight and greasy, his nose prominent with a sharply hooked tip.
Suddenly, the humiliations of the day flooded back uncontrollably.
The beech tree… sheer boredom… Snivellus… choking soap bubbles… a dangling robe… the crowd's cheers and laughter… filthy little Mudblood…
The memories made his breath tremble, his facial muscles numb, his eyes blazing with fury.
In a daze, the reflection in the mirror seemed to merge with the figure standing before it.
Snape slowly raised his wand. One hand brushed back his hair, while the other guided the wand tip, gliding along the strands under the light.
Strands of hair drifted to the floor.
Black eyes locked onto black eyes. Snape whispered, "James Potter, we're not done yet…"