I didn't have the best childhood. It wasn't really even a childhood, when I think about it. It was darwinism. Only the strong can survive. My mum hated Darwin though. My mum hated most people really, so I don't think poor Darwin would've taken it personally.

I grew up under the floorboards of my mother's workplace. I was a secret. Why was I a secret? I never really questioned it. It was just accepted because it was life. I did not even think to question it.

My mum was a beautiful woman with dead eyes. And I mean, truly dead eyes. When she came to visit me in my space under the floor, she would sit down on the dusty boards and just shake her head at me with those dead eyes.
"Why didn't I just kill you." I remember her saying once. I was four.

My mum wasn't a beater type though. She had a heart of gold if you could get through the iron and steel around it. She loved me. That I know. She loved me very much. She's dead now though. She died a long time ago. Anyways... my mum was a housemaid. She did everything everybody else didn't want to do. Scrubbed the floors, cleaned the bathrooms, polished the sliver and so forth. And she was very good at this job. Trouble was, my mum was a squib in a world of witches and wizards. Couldn't cast a single spell. So she did all her work by hand. The wizarding community took pity on her so she got by on small jobs. It was only until she came to work at the mansion, did she decide to stay.

Mum told me the story of how I came to be in blunt detail when I was teeny. She was honest in her ways and didn't mind as long as I didn't go getting any mad ideas in my brain. She said she had come to work for a powerful man and dark wizard. She said his name was Voldemort. On her first day, she was tending to the outside gardens when she saw him sitting in the courtyard, shrouded in a long black cloak. He called her over to him and she came. He asked her why she looked so sad and she replied, "Because I'm destitute sir."

He snickered at that. "What family do you come from?" He asked.

"I don't know sir. I'm an orphan."

"And how does that make you feel?"

"Apathetic. And relieved."

"Relieved?"

"If I knew my parents, they would surely look down upon me because I cannot use magic. They would be ashamed. I'm relieved I don't have that pain."

"You traded that pain for the pain of abandonment." He said.

"Abandonment can be turned into strength. Dishonor is tricker."

He liked my mum. She didn't speak much and when she did, she was honest and true with her words. She told me that he was a horrible man and had killed hundreds but he was the only man who had ever treated her like an equal. He thought of himself as above everyone except for her. Maybe it's because he saw too much of himself in her.

He had a bit of an obsession with my mum. Deep down inside the remnants of his soul, I think he may have loved her. That love was shadowed by his goals and ambitions in the end. Also by the fact that he found love to be an alien concept and couldn't even realize his own feelings. My mum was just a piece of his life that was considered a weakness. But he couldn't kill her. He tried once. My mum was cooking and turned around to see a wand pointed right at her chest. She didn't beg. She didn't flinch. She smiled. Her dead eyes filled with tears and she smiled. Then he lowered his wand and walked away. He couldn't kill someone who wanted to die was his excuse. It was a poor pitiful excuse for a dark wizard who had terrorized the magical world.

My mum hid her pregnancy very well. Though she couldn't cast a spell, she worked very well with potions and used them to help conceal the signs. My mum read a lot and used every bit of knowledge she could come by. Even though she had never had a wizarding education, she was a self taught genius. She had me in the basement by herself and gave me potions to keep me from crying. She then found a small space between the 2nd and 1st floor for me. Only about 4 feet tall and 10 feet in width, it was more of a forgotten storage space than a room. I was raised there. My mum never told him that she was pregnant. She knew he would harm me or even kill me. He cherished her but not her unknown heritage and squib nature. He didn't need me and he didn't want me. She needed me and wanted me. She needed me to live.

Mum told me that she had debated alternate options for what to do with me for years. She thought about the orphanage but she didn't want me to grow up the same way she did. Killing me was pointless now that she had gone through the trouble and pain of having me. She didn't have any friends that would take me either. So she risked everything to keep me here. I respect her a great deal. Though, Agatha Rooney was the type of woman who demanded respect.

When I was just about to turn five, my mum grew very sick. She started to grow weak and thin and was coughing up blood that she hid discreetly with a handkerchief. She was dying and she knew it. Voldemort sensed it too. She didn't have much time left for this world. As my mum grew weaker and weaker, his faith in love ever being considered a strength faded away. Though he would never be able to truly love my mum, her passing took a toll on him. The one thing he feared the most took away the last person that could ever make him feel human.

My mum - even in her final days - made a plan to protect me. She taught me how to make the potions I would need the most to survive. One that would conceal my mind, one that would conceal my appearance, one that would keep me silent. She gave me a map of the house and told me which passages to go to for food. Her last and final gift to me was an opal locket with a moving photo of her inside it alongside the only photo I had ever had taken of me as a baby. She died cleaning the bathroom floor a few days after my fifth birthday. She was discovered by one of Voldemort's followers. Voldemort buried her surprisingly. In the gardens where he first met her. She was honored but still a stain on his life. He choose to forget about her.

And when she died, so did my childhood.

Soon after, Voldemort disappeared. He had gone to stop a prophecy and been defeated by a single baby. The world rejoiced. I ran away. I snuck out of that manor with no one left to inhabit it and lived a life on the streets. I killed animals to survive and snuck into fields and stole vegetables. I was wild and feral and had inherited something my mother hadn't. The ability to use magic. I couldn't control it and sometimes I had accidents because of it. I would wake up floating in the air or I would suddenly find my hair twice as long as it was before I fell asleep.

When I was seven years old, I discovered I had a strange ability. I could speak to snakes. I never bothered with snakes for the longest time; they were dangerous and not easy to catch and eat so I stayed away from them. Until one day when I found a small grass snake basking in the sunlight on a particularly hot summer day. I observed it and then - ever so cautiously - poked it with a stick. It recoiled at its touch and hissed at me.

"Sorry!" I shouted and took a few steps back.
The snake lowered its raised head and it visibly relaxed.

"You speak with my tongue?" The snake asked me.

I just nodded yes in amazement.
The snake slithered over to my feet and I picked it up and let him wrap around my hand.

"You do know it's rude to poke people with sticks, right?" He said.

"Yes." I said sadly.

"Then don't do it. Bloody children and their bloody sticks... So what's wrong child?"

"Nothing."

"I seeee. You're alone in this world aren't you? How sad."

"Umm... what's your name?" I asked.

The snake made a small hissing noise that could only be translated as a laugh.

"Humans and their names. Always amuses me. The other snakes are all mad, going around, naming themselves like blithering idiots... I don't have one."

"Then what do I call you?"

"Whatever you'd like." He said a bit snappy.

I thought about it then decided.

"Apollo." I said.

I remembered his name from when my mum was reading that books about the strange people that always seemed to be at war in the sky.

"I like it. So human, what should I refer to you as?"

"My name is Ophelia." I said.

"Go towards those bushes Ophelia. There are berries there to eat."

"And why should I trust you with that? They could very well be poisonous."

"I harbor no ill will towards you Ophelia. I'm simply curious. I am directing you towards food so that I may be useful. I want to stay by your side and observe you."
I nodded okay. And from that day on, Apollo had become a sort of familiar to me.

After 3 more years of going from place to place, hiding and stealing to live, I finally made a friend. Though it was not easy....

"Get out of here, you street rat!" The voice of the pudgy cook shouted at me. I had simply stolen a few slices of bread and she acts like I've sent a middle finger to the queen.

I ran out of the bakery and down the street.
Looking inside my tattered knapsack, I pulled out one of the slices and ate it quickly. Apollo slithered away from my arm and coiled himself into a necklace around my neck.

"I'm tired of this Ophelia." He just said.

"I am too." I said and started walking down my usual alleyway that I slept in.

"Then do something. Let one of the other humans take you in."

"Absolutely not."

"Why?"

"Because they're not mum."

"Goodness. Always going on about your mum. She's gone, Ophelia. She can't take care of you anymore. And you're still a child. You can't stay on the streets forever."

I knew Apollo was right but I still didn't want to be taken in by anyone. I was scared that they would find out about my father and kill me for his crimes. I knew how people despised him. My mum died trying to protect me. She took the secret of who fathered me to her grave. I couldn't betray her memory.

"Apollo, why can't I?"

He just shook his head and brushed it against my neck almost like a cat.

"Poor child. One day, you'll have to come to terms with your past. Though I suppose... it would be cruel to try to make you when you're only a child."

And with that said, we fell into silence. I fell asleep in a trash heap and was sleeping soundly until I was awoken by a demon.

Nudge. Nudge. A sigh. Then I was shook out of my slumber. Feeling large hands around my shoulders, I immediately started fighting against whoever was touching me. Opening my eyes, I caught a good look of my attacker. Medium length black hair, a crooked nose, and a long dark cloak.

"Let go of me!" I shouted and bit down on his arm.

But he just held on tighter as I bit my teeth down into him, through his cloak. Even when I started to taste blood, he didn't let go. He just stared at me. Stared straight into my dark brown eyes with a look of guilt. I let of his arm and scooted further away from him as he let go of me.

"Who are you?" I said.

He held out his hand.

"A friend of your mothers. Let's go."

I took his hand without any hesitation. My mum didn't leave me alone. She thought of me. Throughout everything, she never stopped thinking of me.

"What's your name?"

"Severus Snape."

"I'm Ophelia Riddle." I said.

He didn't say anything after that. He just brought me home with him. The entire time, his eyes just said I'm sorry.

I'm sorry you were born.