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Look, my brother was in school when they opened the Chamber of Secrets, and he says that the atmosphere changed overnight. Everybody blamed Slytherin - even though my father says that he really put the basilisk there to protect the school, when it was being threatened by the Muggle king, and would never have meant it to attack Muggleborns, all the teachers were acting like he was this big dark wizard. And people really started to gang up on Slytherins - my brother was always being hexed and beaten up, and the teachers were just turning a blind eye. Except Professor Snape, of course - he stood up for us. And it was still like that when I started. So of course we wanted revenge. And we got it, I suppose. But what we got - that wasn't what we wanted, it certainly wasn't what I had wanted. All those poor people being locked up, and tortured - and killed, even. It was horrible, a nightmare. And at first I thought that Snape was going along with it, that he had betrayed us - but then I began to see that he was doing everything he could to counter it. It was when the Carrows came for Penny Blake, and he told them to leave her alone, that she was a half-blood - when everyone knew she was a Muggleborn. And he turned away and saw me staring at him, and he just said, very quietly, 'We have standards, Mortimer' - and I understood. Amd afterwards he got her and her family away, and a lot of other Muggleborns too, or so I'm told. So, when there was the big battle, and all us Slytherins were ordered out of the school, we went to get our families and everyone else we could - because that is what Slytherins are supposed to be, isn't it, practical? - and came back to fight. Because Snape had made us proud to be Slytherins, and we wanted to show that we were part of Hogwarts too. And that's why I came back to the school afterwards, although my parents wanted to send me to Durmstrang. But I'm glad I'm here - I'm proud to be a Slytherin, and I'm very proud to be Head Boy of Hogwarts.
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Everybody says that Professor Snape was really mean and strict, but that isn't how I remember him at all. I was really homesick when I started at Hogwarts, and being sorted into Slytherin didn't help. The girls in my dorm all came from pure-blood families, and all seemed to know each other; and they laughed at me for being a half-blood, and said I shouldn't really be in Slytherin at all - even though my mother had been. Anyway, I had got away from them, and was crying in the corridor, just outside the potions classroom, when all of a sudden the door opened and Professor Snape came out. He gave me a funny look and asked if I was OK. I said that I was - crying all the time - but he just said 'You don't look OK' and then, opening the door, 'You'd better come in'. I was terrified, but I followed him - and he was really nice. He made me sit down, and asked me what was wrong, and lent me his handkerchief. And when I had stopped crying I told him, and then he said that if I shouldn't be in Slytherin then he shouldn't either, because he was a half-blood too, and his family weren't rich or well-known or anything. And that I was just as good as anyone else, and had just as much right to be at Hogwarts as anyone else, and must remember that. And then we talked for a bit, about my family, and how I liked my classes, and I felt much better. He was very awkward - I think he was a bit scared of girls - but very kind. And that is a side of him that you don't hear about so much - how he was as a head of house - but it is how I remember him.
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Professor Snape? Oh yes, he taught me potions at Hogwarts - and he was the best teacher I ever had! He's the reason I'm here now, at St Mungo's, really. I can remember our first lesson with him, when he did that spiel he always did - 'the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses ' - all that stuff - well, I was spellbound. It wasn't the words, it was that he really sounded as though he meant them. Oh, he was strict all right - completely merciless if you did something stupid, and he had me in tears more than once, but it was because he really loved his subject, and really cared that you got it right, and if he could see that you cared too, then he took a lot of trouble with you. Most of my friends didn't notice that - it's not the Hufflepuff way of doing things at all - but I did, and it was through him that I came to see just how exciting magic could be. And how you could innovate too - not just follow the old spells. I was in my fifth year when I realized that the reason he wrote his spells on the blackboard rather than teaching from a book was that he had improved on the spells in the book - and that was a revelation, I can tell you! And that's why I'm here now, working in Research and Development at St Mungo's. A few years ago I met him again, at a party, and Healer Golightly asked if he knew me, and he said 'Oh yes - Miss Farquharson was one of the best students I have ever had'. I was so proud - I never knew he thought so highly of me!
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In that terrible year, when Lord Voldemort took over, we were all afraid for our lives. There were all sorts of rumours about what the Ministry was doing to adult Muggleborns, and how they were disappearing, and we were just waiting for it to start at Hogwarts too. Anyway, Laura Rycroft and I were in the Ravenclaw Common Room, listening to a radio to see if there was any news, when Professor Carrow - the male one - came up outside. He couldn't get in, of course - they were always too stupid to answer the questions - but he could hear that there were people inside, and he was shouting and blustering and kicking the door. And then there was this really quiet sarcastic voice asking him what was going on - and that was Professor Snape, of course. He said 'I'll deal with it, Amycus,' and we just had time to hide the radio before he came in - he had no trouble with the question, of course. He took one look at us, said 'My office. Now.' and hauled us out of the room by the collars of our robes. We were terrified, of course - but the moment he had got us into the office with the door shut, he started telling us that there was no time to waste, and that we would have to get our families out of the country immediately. He told us that there was a secret passage in the corridor to the right of the entrance hall which would take us to Hogsmeade, and that he had left a stock of brooms in the Shrieking Shack that we could use to get home; and that we must be sure to get our families out of the country at once - by some Muggle means like the Channel Tunnel or an airport, as that would confuse Voldemort's people. He even lent us some money. We were stunned. We weren't really sure that we could trust him - Laura asked him why he was doing this, and he just looked at her and said 'I don't want you to die'. He made us promise to go straight away, because he said that the Carrows suspected us and our lives were in danger. We didn't know what to do, but in the end we went, because we knew that the Carrows would get us if we stayed. And it was all exactly as he had said. He risked his life and his mission for us - and it must have been just as he said, that he didn't want us to die. And he did this again and again - there are so many of us who owe him our lives. A real hero.
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Professor Snape loved my mother - that is what he showed me, that is why he did what he did. And he certainly didn't love me - I could see it every time he looked at me, that he really loathed me. And he never lost a chance to insult me, or to take points from Gryffindor because of me, either. But . . . although he was never kind like Professor Dumbledore, he was always there, always looking out for me, from the time he worked to stop Quirrell jinxing me during the Quidditch match in my first year, right up to when he sent his patronus to show me the sword in the pool - that beautiful doe that looked so familiar, that I knew at once that I could trust. And I wonder - I loved Dumbledore, but if he knew all the time that I must die, why did he leave it to Snape to tell me? And was there really no alternative? Perhaps Snape was the one who cared, after all. And not just for me, either: there are so many people who are coming forward now, people he saved from Voldemort - and my mother had nothing to do with them. So, when they say it was all because he loved my mother, I think that they are wrong. He probably didn't know it himself, but his love went far beyond that.