Prologue – The Prince

"Once upon another time, our story had only begun

I had a taste of joy

The most I ever knew

Now there isn't any time and somehow our story is done

And what about the boy?

What am I to do?"

"Just love, just live, and give what you can give

And take the love that you deserve."


Her Patronus appeared just as he was opening Perils in Potions: A Description of the 50 Most Dangerous Magical Substances for a bit of advanced study. The doe stood before him, giving off an ethereal glow. And in her voice, it spoke: "The North London Hospital. Third floor, Room 319. Come at once."

He stared at it for two seconds, frozen in place. He had been waiting for this moment to arrive for days, but now that it had, it took a few moments for him to truly register her words, to grasp their meaning. Then, quite suddenly, he jumped to his feet, the huge Potions volume falling forgotten out of his hands as he hastened to the basement steps. He took them three at a time, hurtled around a corner and threw open a cupboard door. He stopped, breathing hard. His heart and thoughts were racing, and he paused for a moment to try and collect himself. It would not do to panic, not now. He knew what he must do.

Gingerly, he reached into the cupboard and pulled the cat out by its tail. It had been dead for a while now, but his Preserving Spell had kept it from decaying. Dangling from his hand like that, it still looked as though it had only just died. Good, he thought. This was how it was supposed to be, how he had planned it. Now he had to take the next step.

His free hand reached into the pocket of his robes and found his wand. He stared at the cat for a few seconds, trying to supress the unease he felt at what must come next, then pointed his wand straight at it. Infamutatio! he thought, and for an instant, he was blinded by a flash of yellow light. The next second, it was gone. Everything was just as it had been a moment ago – except …

He stared at the thing that had once been the dead cat, turning it over gingerly in his hands. He was not an expert at this kind of thing, but it seemed to him that there was no way to tell the difference between this transfigured replica of a dead infant and a real dead baby. He exhaled, relieved that this part, at any rate, was over, and pointed his wand once more at the body of the dead boy he was now holding instead of the cat's, saying in his mind: Aeternae!

The tiny body grew hot against his skin, then the warmth faded, leaving it dead and cold again. Nothing had changed, yet he knew that it would now be impossible to transfigure to body back into what it had been before. The dead baby boy would now remain a dead baby boy forever.

He took a last look at the body, then wrapped it in a blanket and tightened his grip around it. Closing his eyes, he thought with all his might North London Hospital, Room 319 while turning on the spot. With a loud crack, both he and the bundle in his hand vanished.


They reappeared in a small room on the third floor of the North London Hospital. He steadied himself, his eyes rapidly scanning the room. There was a window with some flowers on the ledge, two doors leading in different directions, and a bed. He barely even noticed the two nurses lying on the floor beside the bed, apparently unconscious. Stepping over them carelessly, he took two steps toward the bed and the woman who was lying in it. Her red hair obscured part of her face, and she looked exhausted, yet her green eyes were wide awake, fixing him as he approached. He met her gaze for a few seconds, then swallowed, and lowered his eyes to look at the bundle the woman was holding in her arms, in size and shape very much like the one he himself had brought with him. There, however, the similarities ended.

The baby was sleeping, its small hands balled to fists next to its tiny face. The right fist was twitching slightly, as though it was trying to thwart off an invisible fly. His lips were opened just a fraction of an inch, and on his head, there was a tuft of hair. It was pitch-black, just like his own.

His eyes were fixed on the child, taking in every inch of his tiny body, nose, lips, chin, closed eyelids, ears, hair, fingers. It was all so miniscule, so impossibly tiny, that it looked fragile enough to break apart at the slightest touch. Yet he was complete. A tiny, perfect little human taking his first breaths on Earth.

And he was his.

He swallowed, tearing his eyes away from the boy – his son – with great effort and meeting the woman's eyes again.

"Are you" – he cleared his throat, his voice sounding very hoarse all of a sudden – "are you sure you don't want to keep him?"

A shadow fell over her eyes, and he got a hint of how much it cost her to fulfil her part of the plan, to do what they both knew had to be done. The pain visible in her eyes was enough to make him yearn to hold her in his arms, to tell her that everything was going to be alright, that he would always protect her against all harm. Yet she had not chosen him for that task, but the man who was now doubtlessly standing right outside the door, waiting, wondering, hoping and praying. The thought that James Potter would, when he entered the room in a few minutes' time, find that all his hopes had been in vain, that all his dreams were smashed to bits and pieces, filled him with savage pleasure. The thought of how much pain all this would inflict upon Lily tore his heart apart; the idea of James's torture gave him nothing but grim satisfaction. It was time, high time, that he, Severus Snape, gave James Potter a dose of what he had received from him during the seven years of their time at Hogwarts.

Lily's answer turned his thoughts away from the man he hated, and back to the woman he loved.

"I can't, Sev", she whispered, the pain in her voice piercing him like a knife. "If he grows up and looks like you and James finds out, he … he'd…"

Her voice trailed off, apparently uncertain of just what her fiancé would do if he found out that the boy he had believed to be his son was, in fact, the seed of his worst enemy.

"You must take him", she continued, her voice stronger now. As he looked into her eyes, he saw a resolute determination there, not quite blocking out the pain, but still overpowering it. This imperturbable strength inside her was one of the things he loved about her the most.

"Give him a loving home", she whispered, looking down at her son, caressing his soft black hair. "The home you never had, Sev. You must be father and mother to him. Promise me that."

He looked down at her, and at the boy in her arms. "I promise", he said, in no more than a whisper, yet in all his life, he had never meant any words as much as those.

"Don't let him get in contact with those … those friends of yours", she said, her voice suddenly filled with hatred. "I won't have our son raised in prejudice and warped beliefs. I want him to make his own mind up about the world, and to judge others for who they are, not their ancestors. Swear to me, Sev, that you will never let him become a Death Eater. Never. Swear it!"

Our son. Her words echoed in his head, engraved themselves on his heart. He looked into her fierce green eyes and said, quietly: "I swear it."

She relaxed slightly, sinking back into the cushions. "Did you bring … it?", she asked, hesitating slightly at the last word.

He nodded and put his bundle down upon the bed. The dead boy's face was not terribly unlike his son's, yet there could be no question of confusion. His boy radiated life while the other was still and unmoving. Dead.

"What will you tell them?", he asked, though he knew. He just wanted to be absolutely sure that they really were going to get away with this deception, this plan sprung up from desperation and countless hours of scheming and plotting, finally settling on it because there had been no other way.

"When you've gone, I'll lift those Stunning Spells on the nurses", Lily said calmly. "I've already modified their memories. They won't remember being Stunned. It'll be as if I had just given birth to a stillborn baby. They'll call James in and tell him that his son is dead." Her voice quivered slightly at that last bit, but there was no hesitation, no doubt in her words. There was no going back. She would stick to the plan.

He nodded, then swallowed. Now that it was time to take his son – their son – and go, he was suddenly not sure if he could really do it. He was 18 years old. Was he really able to bring up a child all by himself? The idea scared him worse than anything. He was so afraid of failing her, failing her son, failing himself. And yet he had no choice.

Hesitantly, he stepped up to the bed, and when he stood right beside her, Lily lifted her bundle, kissed the child on the forehead, then placed him in his arms.

"Go now, Sev", she said, her voice thick and choking. He knew she was desperately trying to keep it together, and every second's delay would only make the parting harder.

"I'll love him, Lily", he whispered to her, desperate to give her at least some small comfort. "He won't ever want for anything, I promise."

She looked up at him. Tears were now streaming down her face, but the smile she gave him was genuine and full of fondness. "I know you will", she said and squeezed his arm. Whether to reassure him or herself, he did not know, yet it made him feel stronger. Then, he felt something close around his left ring finger.

His son had not woken up, yet one of those tiny fists had opened and closed tightly around his finger. The baby's hand was so small that he could barely reach all the way around it, yet there was a strength in his grip that Severus had not expected. As he looked down at his son grasping his finger, something in his breast swelled. Suddenly, there was no room for doubt anymore. All that remained was love.

"Goodbye, Lily", he said, meeting her tear-filled eyes for one last time.

He would not disappoint her, he vowed to himself in that instant. Not her, nor his son.

Then he turned on the spot and disapparated.


Author's Note:

Hello to you, reader, and I'm very pleased you made it this far! :)

This is the first long story I'm publishing here. It's still in progress, so I can't promise regular updates, but I'll try to do it once a week or so. I'm not an English native speaker, so if you spot any mistakes in grammar or spelling, then please tell me so I can correct them. A huge thanks goes to my beta Citywriter84, without whose corrections I wouldn't have had the courage to publish this story here, and also to my dear friend Sambadi, who was the first to give me advice on the story.

I've had a lot of fun writing this story, and now I'm dying to know if you've had fun reading it, so please review and let me know what you think!

The quotation at the beginning is taken from Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Love Never Dies", lyrics by Glenn Slater.