1. Chapter 1

**Year 1976**

_As a teenager Severus Snape's life takes an unexpected turn after meeting a relative he never knew he had. _

_I do not own either Buffy the Vampire Slayer nor Harry Potter_

**Chapter 1**

His visitor was Malfoy blond in really strange muggle clothes and pins in his ears

Ripped blue Jeans, ripped waistcoat with pins holding everything together, black heavy boots. The effect all in all was extreme.

Very sharp cheekbones and strikingly blue eyes.

* * *

Spike looked over the boy before him. Severus Snape, 5 year Slytherin.

The boy was thin and pale with intelligent black eyes, the hair lanky.

Spike had seen that often enough to recognize it as a reaction to Potions fumes.

The Hogwarts robe was at least secondhand and looked the part, the shoes were nearly threadbare. He didn't have to look to know that everything else but the wand was secondhand and battered.

"Are you aware who I am?"

"No."

Quick and to the point. The boy was promising.

"My name is Spike, I'm a Vampire."

No reaction to that. Interesting.

"The reason for me being here is my human family."

A little pause.

"My human name is Lord William John Prince, Head of the most Noble House of Prince."

Again, no visible reaction from the Slytherin.

Perhaps he didn't know of this part of the family?

"You know of the Princes." It wasn't a question.

"My mother was a Prince before she married my father. Her father disinherited her for marrying a muggle and burned her out of the family tapestry."

Yes, he had done more then just that. She had not been allowed to keep in contact with anybody in her family, she was considered a persona non Grata.

Severus as her child was not considered belonging to the Prince family as well. He had never met his grandparents or any other relatives before. Since the death of his mother in his first year he was completely alone with his alcoholic and abusive father.

Spike just nodded to this. The other Prince didn't have the right to do that, only the Head of the House could decide to disown somebody completely.

Something Spike hadn't done and wouldn't have done under the circumstances. The boy's grandfather had realized that once the vampire had been back.

Why didn't he come home earlier? Severus was 16 now, nearly an adult. Perhaps he was too late for his plans.

"Despite what you may think, your grandfather didn't have the right to do as he did. I already made very clear what I thought of his actions."

As long as the old man lived he wouldn't be stupid enough to cross him again.

"As it is, I expect you to continue the name of Prince and act as the heir to the name and titles."

The boy was a Slytherin, Spike knew he would know what that meant. The House was very traditional in some ways and expected it's members to knew manners, traditions and political and sociological standings of everybody, even a poor half blood.

The pale face with the black eyes seemed confused for a moment. "There are pureblooded Prince-Descendants that would be the next logical heirs. The aunt of my mother, Peninah Prince has 2 children and 3 grandchildren all bearing the name of Prince. The next in line would be Octavius Prince"

Spike thought that this teenager would be interesting. It seemed he had made the right choice.

"This would be the case without my intervention, yes.

As Head of the House I decided to skip the title of heir to you as the son of the former heiress.

Peninah and her family are to much interested in the title and the money and not interested at all in furthering the name of the family. I always told your great uncle he was making a mistake by marrying Peninah Prewitt. Little gold digger…

For what I expect of you: You have to end your formal education as best as possible and decide on a work fitting for you. No slouching around!

I know it is fashionable for certain people not to work because they have enough money to live on interests, but this is not done in my family as long as I am the Head."

Severus didn't have a problem with this. He couldn't even imagine what people did with that much time.

"I expect at least one legitimate child out of you in the course of your life. I don't care if you prefer men, women, muggle or magical creature as long as there will be one descendant. If you have a preference for men or certain magical creatures, there are Potions to allow a pregnancy to occur and maintain. I'm not concerned with marriage or bondings, if you accept a child as legitimate, it will be accepted as that by the family.

This should be manageable with a life expectancy of 200 years."

With the rules of the family depending on the Head every family had it's own rules. Knowing what was expected of some of his Slytherin peers Severus knew he had luck. Spike didn't really expect much.

Others had their whole life dictated, whom they would marry, what they would do for work, if they were allowed to work, how many children they had to have in which period of time and so on.

He just had to get a job and procreate at least once with whomever he chose.

"I want you to leave Hogwarts to go to a school more fitting for you."

Severus steeled himself. Despite the attitude of most people, there were more than one wizarding school in great Britain. The other schools were more specialized in one way or the other and a whole lot smaller. There were schools you needed to have a lot of money for to attend, others that had different courses and so on.

Where would his new Head of Family decide to bring him to?


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Spike looked in the bowl picturing the youngest Prince writing his placement tests in a different room in the small school. The Headmistress leafed through the copy of Severus' grades from his muggle school to Hogwarts and the school books with the extensive notes by the boy himself. Spike had decided to bring Severus here after seeing the boys comments in his books. He seemed to have the right feeling when he saw the reaction of the Headmistress.

"Lord Prince, the boy has an exceptional understanding of the working of magic. While he is a straight O-student in Arithmancy he doesn't need it at all to create original potions and spells and change existing ones. The only class he didn't manage an O in is his E in Transfiguration. He doesn't just remember, he changes things just in his mind to fit his purpose, a very rare ability.

I don't know why he wasn't recommended to us years ago. We have a deal with most magical schools, Hogwarts included, that they forward every student that is way of the chart like Mr Prince to filter the students that weren't tested before because they went to a muggle school or had a private teacher."

She made a note in her mind that the Hogwarts Headmaster needed to be reminded of their deal and to critique him and his teachers for their blatant oversight.

The pale boy she could see in her bowl didn't know he would test out of certain subjects by filling the placement test depending on how well he did.

Headmistress Valara was sure he managed an OWL in every subject even with being at the beginning of his fifth year.

She also knew that there would be subjects he could already test out of NEWT-level: Potions, Arithmancy and Charms at least, according to this notes possibly even more.

The moment they knew his real levels they could start teaching.

She came back to reality and looked in the incredible blue eyes of Lord Prince.

"I trust that Severus will have no problems here with other students?"

A common problem with talented children was that the normal children in the same courses didn't react well to them.

"I can assure you that magical or physical violence is not a problem at this school.

Most of our students didn't have good experiences with their former peers. Here, they are the norm and can relax.

Are there any other questions to our school, Lord Prince?"

Spike thought of what would be useful for the boy unrelated to normal classes.

It was the only magical school for the gifted in Europe and had students from every country.

"Will there be problems regarding the language?"

Headmistress Valara expected this question, it always came at one point or the other and she could always tell the worrying parents that there would not be a problem.

"Every student has to learn Latin and ancient Greek and both languages are used as the official school languages as most of our spells are based in these.

From his spells I would expect young Mr Prince learned a lot of Latin and has a working understanding of ancient Greek already.

When he has a class without other students it will be in English, in mixed language groups in one of the school languages. There are possibilities to learn more languages for everybody interested."

Spike asked a few more question, making sure he could leave the young human here.

* * *

The bowl glowed blue, signaling that Severus had finished his tests.

* * *

Severus looked around the Headmistress office. Spike sat beside him and waited with him for the Headmistress and Severus placement test.

Severus didn't know which school the vampire had decided on and didn't know where he was.

What was expected of him?

The Headmistress came in with a bundle of parchment and sat in her chair before Severus even had the possibility to stand up in greeting.

"Mr Prince" – Severus needed a second to remember that she had addressed him – "I welcome you as a student of the Magische Schule für Hochbegabte Vaduz (magical school for the gifted Vaduz)."

Vaduz? He would go to Vaduz?

Severus couldn't believe he managed to get accepted here!

While Liechtenstein didn't have a big magical community and pupils from Liechtenstein went to the magical schools in Switzerland, the magical school Vaduz was accepted as one of the top schools in magic in the world. And it was a school you had to qualify for, it wasn't possible to buy your way in.

"As result of your placement test you finished every written British OWL and already the written NEWTs for Potions, Arithmancy, DADA, Charms, Runes, and Astronomy. In the next few days you will be doing the practical exams. After that you are completely free to learn whatever course you want in this school. You can further your courses beyond NEWTs to Mastery, you can further from OWL to the NEWTs and beyond or you can start complete new classes.

We have a wide spectrum of classes that weren't available at your old school.

You will be given a peer tutor who will look after you, shows you the school and explains everything regarding the classes."

Severus didn't really understand what he was feeling. Was he happy?


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Spike walked through the children, Severus' trunk in miniature in his pocket.

It was Monday.

It was funny, he had come to the country last week to check the family to find chaos. He knew he had to find an alternative to Octavius as heir and decided on Severus for a few reasons, not at least to stop Peninah's power over the family. Severus grandfather didn't have the idea to delete Eileen Prince-Snape out of the family by himself, he was a weak, not overly bright wizard who listened to his sister in law. The sister in law that wanted to make sure that her children and grandchildren would be the heirs to the family gold, children and grandchildren that were also weak willed enough to let the matron play her little power games.

Not with Spike.

Finding the boy chock full of magic and talent was very promising. He would need to keep the boy safe from Peninah so he had to get him out of Hogwarts. That the boy was so talented that he could go to Vaduz made the safekeeping easier and validated the sense of Spike's choice to others, not that Spike gave a damn what others thought.

Friday noon he came to the school to look over the grades and learn something about the boy by the Headmaster and his Head of House, Friday after classes they had their talk.

On Saturday Severus did his placement test, yesterday he finished the practical NEWTs and today Spike was back in Scotland for the trunk.

The vampire understood that Severus needed a bit time to get over the extreme changes his life was going through at the moment.

When he was happily immersed in his courses Spike would tell the family of his decision, knowing Peninah would be furious but powerless. Her political and social power would sink to an all time low due to the change in her standing in the family.

Spike's plan for today was easy:

1. get the trunk with Severus things  
2. inform Dumbledore that Sev will not go to Hogwarts anymore  
3. go to Spinner's End and kill the abusive and alcoholic idiot Tobias Snape slowly and painfully  
4. change the rights to the general family vault in Gringotts according to your decision and make sure that in the case of Sevs death the Prince money would never be able to go to Peninah or one of her descendants (Spike knew the woman after all)  
5. buy a few things for Sev to wear because he really needs them

Spike had already went to Diagon Alley and chosen a few standard things. There would be real shopping in the near future, but it would last a for few days. Everything was in the trunk.

He had already gone to Gringotts seeing that is was on the way. Spike would be interested when the others realized that the vault was not access-able any more.

Now he would inform Dumbledore and Tobias Snape was kept last as the Highlight of Spike's day.

* * *

"With what can I help you today?"

The old man sat behind his wide desk and waited. He wore a neon yellow robe with neon green disappearing and reappearing dots and the matching hat, an eyesore Spike thought was more against the laws of nature then the existence of vampires. He was sure the only reason Dumbledore was wearing something like this was because he was a sadist and didn't see the robes as he was wearing them himself.

When he focused on the face to distract himself from the robes and saw the old face he remembered that Dumbledore was younger than him by a few years.

"I'm just here to inform you that Severus Snape will leave Hogwarts. I have already taken everything of his out of the Slytherin Dungeons."

The Headmaster looked surprised but Spike had expected that.

"Do you need anything in writing?"

Dumbledore accioed a form for Spike to fill.

* * *

Albus looked at his old acquaintance. When Dumbledore came to Hogwarts as a first year, Will Prince was already a fifth year Ravenclaw.

It was always a bit strange to see him as he know was, frozen in time. It was strange to see him as anything else but the nice prefect who wanted to study classics and arts and lived in the muggle world to get his degrees in Oxford.

He knew that Will Prince was also Spike, but he never realized all that it meant before. Looking like he did know, swathed in ripped jeans without any visible emotion was disconcerting.

A fleeting thought went to the former Slytherin Snape and what would happen to him.

From what he had heard the boy had been promising.

Yes, Spike could decide to take him out of school but what would the boy be able to do without a formal education?


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Spike looked over the parchments and sighed.

After his last temporary out with his companion Drusilla, he had decided to come back to his family as a kind of vacation. No vampire but Spike would manage to get responsibility for a human teen because of an ill-timed vacation!

All in all, he had enough of Drusilla and her constant neediness, moodiness and cheating. He wouldn't crawl back to Dru, not this time. He deserved better than that.

Perhaps he just needed something more to do?

There was a promising Slayer in New York. It was too long ago that he drank Slayer blood, he could make a trip there.

Yes, perhaps that was what he needed, a good fight and killing before he came back. And after shaking the family tree up he would find something or somebody else to do to occupy his time.

* * *

Severus sat in his new room, his trunk waiting to be opened.

He couldn't really believe what had happened to him in this short time.

2 weeks ago Lily gave up on him because he said one wrong word in the heat of the moment. He tried to apologize but it seemed all this years of friendship didn't mean more to her then one verbal mistake.

And now he was in a different school far away from Great Britain, his peers in Slytherin, the Marauders and Lily.

He could learn whatever he wanted to learn. He had a family Head that had accepted him as part of the family, hadn't even hurt him in any way, didn't say anything slighting because of his looks or his manners or saw it as strange for somebody his age to read as much as he did.

Even with everything else changing back to before, his life in Hogwarts as the strange friendless Snivellus and victim of the Gryffs, the easy acceptance of Spike would have been enough.

He kept waiting to wake up, to find himself back in the dungeons or even his room in Spinner's End, shivering under his ratty blanket.

"Hello. You must be Severus. My name is Michel."

He looked to the door to see the strange boy his age. It was surprising to be addressed in Latin, or Latin with a french accent in this case, but his mother had taught him the language when she was still alive and he understood and spoke it well enough.

"Yes, that's me."

"Madame Valara sent me here, I will be your tutor. Do you want to unpack now or to look around first?"

That decision was easy. "Look around, I think."

He didn't feel very talkative but Michel didn't seem to mind as both went out.

"So, are you a kept or a free one?"

"What?" was the french coming onto him? He hoped not.

An open laugh. "Sorry, that's how we call ourselves. We have two types of students here, the kept and the free. The kept still work on their general education, OWLs and NEWTs, the free are already done with that and can learn whatever they are interested in."

"A free, then."

A small nod as if Michel had expected that

They were looking at a group of students playing footie.

"You are expected to have at least one class of sports or arts independent of your other classes. There exists a complete list of the possibilities so you can decide easier. There aren't any grades for that, this is the way of the school to force you to something recreational."

That got a little grin out of Severus.

"There are clubs as well: Chess, cooking, languages, it doesn't really matter.

They are not mandatory but I don't know anybody who isn't in a club.

The second class you have to go to is household charms and potions. This is expected of every student."

"Household charms?"

Michel nodded. "Yes. This school was founded for the gifted, but they didn't want us to be unable to function outside of our ivory towers. In Vaduz every pupil is expected to learn to function without help. The elves cook but everybody has to clean his own room and clothes. In most other schools that is different."

Severus nodded. To train the students for life after school was a good idea. He could just imagine the reactions if some of his old peers in Hogwarts were told they had to wash their own clothes.

"Do you have a special area of interest? Something you know you will do?"

"Potions."

Michel smiled. "Ah, one of those. Come on, I show you the potions laboratories."

* * *

Severus looked over his schedule to see which books he needed next.

The 2 weeks he had been in Vaduz had been wonderful. He could concentrate on what he wanted to learn and didn't have to sit in classes he wasn't interested in.

Another great thing about the school was that he could study magical and muggle science at the same time. The school had contacts to the Universities in Switzerland and the Vaduz' pupils went there by floo. Because of that he would have medi-wizardry and after that biochemistry for his goal to get his mastery in medicinal potions and muggle pharmacy, something he would not have thought possible before.

Michel doubled his studies in magical and muggle too. First of all, his passion astronomy was transferable in both worlds and as a muggle-born he wanted to decide for himself which world he wanted to live in.

Today Spike would be back from his short trip to New York to see if Severus liked his new school.

The vampire had said something about slayers and coats but the teen hadn't really understood Spike's mumbling. He would see when the vampire was back.

As a sport class Severus had decided on fencing. He had the right figure for this sport and fast reflexes.

Not being ridiculed during a physical activity was new for Severus and he already thought about adding a second sport course to his schedule. Life was good.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Dumbledore looked over the parchment . For this meeting he wanted a good ending.

"The last point for today is that Headmistress Valara from Vaduz will come next week for an informal meeting."

The other teachers seemed excited. It was always interesting when they had somebody from a different school and Vaduz was... well, it was Vaduz.

"Think if you have pupils that would qualify for them when she is here already."

* * *

Peninah Prince looked over her family and didn't show the anger that smoldered inside her.

When her son Octavius told her that all their money had been frozen she couldn't believe it. She knew she had her brother in law doing what she wanted, how could that have happened?

Angrily demanding answers at Gringotts the Goblins told her that every account was frozen and could only be opened again by the Head of the family.

She hadn't seen the Head of the Family William Prince for nearly 20 years so his dramatic look was quite shocking at first glance.

The nearly white hair gave him an ethereal look and his blue eyes with the black kohl gave an even more impressive contrast.

He wore black muggle clothes and a long black leather coat.

He looked over the people sitting there. Peninah with children and grandchildren, Octavius to her right side, seemingly shrinking away from his mother.

Marcus Cornelius Prince, father of Eileen, grandfather of Severus, didn't look his head of the family in the eyes. He already had angered the Vampire, he didn't want to make it even worse.

"I realized that I probably was away for too long. I was surprised to see a few of the developments."

Sharp blue eyes focused Peninah and Marcus for a moment.

"And I thought that it was necessary to look for the best and the future of the family, meaning clear decisions that will help everybody to know where they stand exactly."

Octavius straightened himself out. He was sure this was about him getting finally all access as heir.

Peninah looked regal and proud.

"Nobody of you did anything to further the name or standing of the family. You either play your social games or you wither away the money."

Nobody dared to say anything.

"Instead of just doing what you did before you get a stipend you have to live with."

Peninah looked at him as if he was insane

"You will not be able to live to the standards you were used to in the past. If you want live by the same standard as before I encourage all of you to at least think about the idea of work."

Peninah paled. This was a catastrophe for her social standing. A stipend like the wife of a commoner, and not even enough to cover the bare essentials?

"The money will be administrated by a financial adviser of Gringotts."

A goblin! No chance of gaining an influence over one of them. There went that idea.

"The only exception is, of course, the heir to the family."

The little sadistic side of Spike waited for a moment to get the best effect. The little part that learned first hand from Angelus how to give his victim a little hope and then to shatter them completely.

"Of course Severus needs a bit time to learn finances and he has other interests that keep him occupied. But I'm sure in a few years when he is older he will be willing to administrate the family vaults himself."

Octavius kept himself completely still, he didn't dare a look to anybody else.

Peninah couldn't believe her ears. Eileen's little brat would be the heir? And what would happen when he was alone responsible for the family vaults and decided to cut the other side completely off?


End file.
